etheses.whiterose.ac.uk Dunlea...i Acknowledgements I would like to thank a number of people for their support over the past few years, especially my supervisors, Dr Peter Watt and

Reproducing Imperial Visions of Bolivia?

The personal, the cultural, and the economic

in the British and Bolivian press

Stacey Dunlea

A thesis submitted to the University of Sheffield in fulfilment of the requirements

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Hispanic Studies

March 2015

Contents

Acknowledgements i

List of abbreviations iii

List of tables v

Abstract vii

Introduction 1

Background to the Bolivian press 6

Methodology 14

Chapter One: Representations of Latin America in Britain: A historical

perspective

22

Chapter Two: Elections 54

Chapter Three: Coca 118

Chapter Four: Energy 174

Conclusions 232

Appendix 236

Bibliography 266

i

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank a number of people for their support over the past few years,

especially my supervisors, Dr Peter Watt and Prof David Wood, since without their guidance this

thesis would never have been finished. My thanks extend to the rest of the staff in the

Department of Hispanic Studies at the University of Sheffield, as well as the support staff in the

School of Languages and Cultures. In particular, I thank Claire Leavitt, the Postgraduate

Research Officer, and Caroline Wordley, the Postgraduate Coordinator, for their unfailing hard

work, as well as Blair Bayliss and Sandra Henry for keeping me gainfully – and flexibly –

employed over the past year.

I must also thank the other SLC PGRs whose friendship, encouragement, and tea-

making skills have been invaluable, particularly over the past few months.

I would also like to thank all the staff at the Archivo y Biblioteca Nacionales de Bolivia,

Sucre, particularly Leonor Ferrufino, Consuelo Vedia, and María Alcobes for their assistance

whilst I worked at the ABNB. Thanks must also go to Jenny Cartagena, Editora Nacional, Los

Tiempos; Carlos A. Camacho Azurduy, Universidad Católica Boliviana San Pablo; Carlos Corz

P., Editor Nacional, La Razón; Raúl Peñaranda Undurraga, ex-Editor, Página Siete; and Erick

Torrico Villanueva, Coordinador Nacional, Observatorio Nacional de Medios for their valuable

time.

I must thank the staff at Fenix Language School for welcoming me to Sucre, and for

putting me in touch with Magí Guzmán Yucra, who welcomed me into her home and family

during my three-month stay.

I also thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for the financial support that

made this thesis possible.

I thank my many friends and family for their support, especially my sister Zoë and my

parents for always encouraging me.

Last but not least I thank my partner David for his love and support and for keeping me

sane during this whole process.

ii

iii

List of abbreviations

ABNB Archivo y Biblioteca Nacionales de Bolivia

ADN Acción Democrática Nacionalista

APB Autonomía para Bolivia

ASP Asamblea de la Soberanía de los Pueblos

BTU British thermal units

CNE Corte Nacional Electoral

COB Central Obrera Boliviana

COMIBOL Corporación Minera de Bolivia

CPE Constitución Política del Estado

CSUTCB Confederación Sindical Unica de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia

DPA Deutsche Presse-Agentur

FCT Federación de Cocaleros del Trópico

FDI Foreign direct investment

FECLN Fuerza Especial de Lucha Contra el Narcotráfico

FEJUVE Federación de Juntas Vecinales de El Alto

ITC International Tin Council

IU Izquierda Unida

Ley INRA Ley del Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria

LME London Metal Exchange

MAS Movimiento al Socialismo (fully MAS-IPSP Instrumento Político por la Soberanía de los

Pueblos)

MAS-U Movimiento al Socialismo-Unzaguista

MIP Movimiento Indígena Pachakuti

MIR Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria

MNR Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario

NFR Nueva Fuerza Republicana

NPE Nueva Política Económica

ONADEM Observatorio Nacional de Medios

PND Plan Nacional de Desarrollo

PODEMOS Poder Democrático y Social

PP Partido Popular

PPB–CN Plan Progreso para Bolivia – Convergencia Nacional

TCF Trillion cubic feet

UCS Unidad Cívica Solidaridad

UDAPE Unidad de Análisis de Políticas Económicas

UDP Unidad Democrática Popular

UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

YPFB Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos

iv

v

List of tables

Background to the Bolivian press Table 1.1: Geographic structure and ownership of the Bolivian press 7 Table 1.2: Literacy rates in Bolivia 8 Table 1.3: Popular sources of political information in Bolivia 9 Table 1.4: Media consumption patterns in Bolivia 9 Table 1.5: Press freedom in Bolivia and other Latin American countries 12 Chapter Two: Elections Table 2.1a: Descriptions of Evo Morales in British press articles relating to the 2002 election

67

Table 2.2a: Discourse representation in British press articles relating to the 2002 election 72 Table 2.3a: Descriptions of Evo Morales in Bolivian press articles relating to the 2002 election

78

Table 2.4a: Discourse representation in Bolivian press articles relating to the 2002 election

81

Table 2.5a: Descriptions of Evo Morales in British press articles relating to the 2005 election

84

Table 2.6a: Discourse representation in British press articles relating to the 2005 election 94 Table 2.7a: Descriptions of Evo Morales in Bolivian press articles relating to the 2005 election

100

Table 2.8a Discourse representation in Bolivian 2005 election related articles 106 Table 2.9a Descriptions of Evo Morales in British 2009 election related articles 109 Table 2.10a: Discourse representation in British press articles relating to the 2009 election

111

Table 2.11a: Descriptions of Evo Morales in Bolivian press articles relating to the 2009 election

113

Table 2.12a: Discourse representation in Bolivian press articles relating to the 2009 election

114

Chapter Three: Coca Table 3.1: References to traditional use of coca in the British press 134 Table 3.2: References to traditional use of coca in the British press without de-legitimizing traditional use

140

Table 3.3a: Discourse representation in British coca-cocaine related articles 2000-2005 142 Table 3.4a: Discourse representation in British coca-cocaine related articles 2005-2010 143 Table 3.5: Framing of coca-cocaine in Bolivian press 2000-2005 157 Table 3.6: Framing of coca-cocaine in Bolivian press 2005-2010 160 Table 3.7a: Discourse representation in Bolivian coca-cocaine related articles 2000-2005 161 Table 3.8a: Discourse representation in Bolivian coca-cocaine related articles 2005-2010 163 Table 3.9: References to violence in coca-cocaine related articles 2000-2005 166 Table 3.10: Denials and accusations relating to cocalero involvement with cocaine trade 2000-2005

167

Table 3.11: References to violence in coca-cocaine related articles 2005-2010 169 Table 3.12: Denials and accusations relating to cocalero involvement with cocaine trade 2005-2010

169

Chapter Four: Energy Table 4.1: UK press articles on Bolivia by subject matter (ten most frequent categories only)

196

Table 4.2: Energy-related articles in the UK press by newspaper and year 197 Table 4.3: References to nationalization in UK energy-related articles by newspaper and year

198

Table 4.4a: Discourse representation in British energy related articles 209 Table 4.5: Energy-related articles in the Bolivian press by newspaper and year 217

vi

Table 4.6: References to nationalisation in Bolivian energy-related articles by newspaper, year, and discourse type

218

Table 4.7a: Discourse representation in Bolivian energy related articles 222 Table 4.8: Framing of energy matters in the Bolivian press 222 Appendix Table 2.1b: Descriptions of Evo Morales in British press articles relating to the 2002 election by newspaper

236

Table 2.2b: Discourse representation in British press articles relating to the 2002 election by newspaper

238

Table 2.3b: Descriptions of Evo Morales in Bolivian press articles relating to the 2002 election by newspaper

239

Table 2.4b: Discourse representation in Bolivian press articles relating to the 2002 election by newspaper

242

Table 2.5b: Descriptions of Evo Morales in British press articles relating to the 2005 election by newspaper

243


249


250


253

Table 2.9b: Descriptions of Evo Morales in British 2009 election related articles by newspaper

255


256


257


258

Table 3.3b: Discourse representation in British coca-cocaine related articles 2000-2005 by newspaper

259

Table 3.4b: Discourse representation in British coca-cocaine related articles 2005-2010 by newspaper

260

Table 3.7b: Discourse representation in Bolivian coca-cocaine related articles 2000-2005 by newspaper

261

Table 3.8b: Discourse representation in Bolivian coca-cocaine related articles 2005-2010 by newspaper

262

Table 4.4b: Discourse representation in British energy related articles by newspaper 263 Table 4.7b: Discourse representation in Bolivian energy related articles by newspaper 264

vii

Abstract

This thesis examines historical patterns of representation of Bolivia in Britain, along with

the ways in which those representations have been internalized by local elites. It analyses the

extent to which historical representations are reproduced by contemporary British and Bolivian

press coverage of Bolivian political matters, focusing on three key areas: the personal, the

cultural, and the economic.

The personal is examined with respect to elections involving Evo Morales, the current

Bolivian president. The UK press, the Bolivian press, and Morales himself have all sought to

portray him as a radical leftist who represents a break from Bolivia’s traditional power base.

However, Morales’s presidency has been less radical than suggested. The study shows that

while contemporary British press coverage reproduces some of the problematic aspects of early

representations, the contemporary Bolivian press appears more resistant to them.

The cultural is examined through the coca leaf and cocaine. Coca, a mild stimulant, is

central to Andean culture, but is also used to produce cocaine. While the coca leaf is Andean

cultural material, cocaine is a European scientific invention. The study has found that British

press delegitimizes the distinction between the leaf and the drug, thereby asserting the

superiority of European worldviews. The Bolivian press allows for the duality of the leaf,

suggesting that internalization of the supposed inferiority of local culture is limited.

The economic is explored through coverage of Bolivia’s natural resources. The UK

press, reproducing historical patterns, renders Bolivia little more than a source of raw materials,

and a blank canvas upon which British concerns can be projected and discussed. To a certain

extent, the Bolivian coverage also renders Bolivia a source of raw materials to be exploited by

foreign capital, supporting the notion that resource exploitation will allow Bolivia to develop.

viii

1

Introduction

This thesis examines historical patterns of representation of Bolivia in Britain, and how

those representations have been internalized by local elites in fashioning their own notions of

national identity. It analyses the extent to which those historical representations are reproduced

in British and Bolivian press coverage of Bolivian political matters between 1998 and 2010,

paying particular attention to three key areas: the personal, the cultural, and the economic. It

should be noted that the primary concern of the thesis is British representations of Bolivia, and

the Bolivian press content is analysed for comparative purposes. Consequently, the analysis of

British press content is rather more in-depth than that of Bolivian press content. Moreover, it

should be noted that the historical representations incorporate the British vision of other parts of

Latin America, in addition to wider European visions of the continent.

It cannot be stressed enough that any question of internalization of British, or indeed

European, representations by Bolivian elites is not a suggestion that the contemporary Bolivian

press pays particular attention to what contemporary British journalists have to say about

Bolivia. Therefore, this thesis does not constitute an attempt to measure the impact of the

contemporary UK press upon the contemporary Bolivian press. Rather, the thesis takes as a

point of origin the general patterns of representation of Bolivia (and Latin America as a whole) in

Britain (and Europe as a whole) that were established in the nineteenth and early twentieth

century. The thesis, assuming a degree of early internalization of the European gaze on the part

of Bolivian elites, examines contemporary press output in order to assess the extent to which

the British press and the Bolivian press, separately, have diverged from those early

representations.

The thesis fills a significant gap in both media-related research and Latin American

studies. Though chapter one demonstrates that the often problematic historical British

representations of Latin America have been covered extensively by other researchers, very little

in-depth academic research into contemporary media representations of the region has been

carried out. General research into foreign news coverage has largely focused upon British

media representations of the Middle East, as exemplified by the Glasgow Media Group’s Bad

News from Israel (Philo and Berry 2004). Most research into British media portrayals of Latin

2

America is incorporated into wider studies on world news coverage or more general discussions

of representations of Latin America in Britain, such as Kevin Foster’s brief discussion of the

British media and Chile’s Pinochet regime in a broader study of historical representations of

Latin America, a study which is discussed in detail in chapter one of this thesis (Foster 2009).

The most extensive body of work on the British media and Latin America remains the flurry of

books published in the 1980s on the British media and the 1982 Falklands conflict.

Despite the dearth of such research, the British media’s contemporary treatment of

Latin America is crucial to our understanding of the region. As demonstrated by researchers

such as Wanta, Golan, and Lee (2008), media coverage – and especially negative media

coverage – strongly influences public perceptions of foreign countries and people. Furthermore,

as Philip Seib (1997) has shown, news coverage can have a significant influence on foreign

policy. Contemporary British media representations of Latin America not only shape public

perceptions of the region and its people and encourage the persistence of old stereotypes

through a Eurocentric worldview, but also have serious implications for Britain’s political and

economic engagement with the region.

I have been asked on a number of occasions during the research process why the

project focuses upon British and not US representations, given that the US has a greater

influence in contemporary Latin America. The British media is as crucial as the US media, if not

more so, in helping to shape the British public’s impression of Latin America. As a UK-based

researcher, these impressions have a significant impact upon people’s interest in my work –

particularly that of the undergraduate students who begin studying the region each year.

Consequently, UK press representations merit attention. Moreover, the role the US plays in

Latin America, and the representation of Latin America(ns) and/or US-based Latinos has been

well documented by other researchers, such as Victor Bonomi and Po-Lin Pan (2013), Melissa

A. Johnson, John L. Davis and Sean Cronin (2009), Jules Boykoff (2009), Regina P. Branton

and Johanna Dunaway (2009), and Sandra H. Dickson (1994 and 1992). Thus, UK

representations offer a wider scope for research that both complements and contrasts with

research into US representations. In addition, despite the idea that the US is a pervasive

influence throughout Latin America while for Britain, the region is an irrelevance, US business

interests in Bolivia are rather limited. This is particularly apparent in chapter four, which relates

3

to energy sources. British companies have played a far more significant recent role in Bolivia’s

energy sector. Meanwhile, as will be discussed in chapter three, though the War on Drugs is

perhaps the area in which US interests in Bolivia are strongest, the UK also plays a role, albeit

in the guise of EU developmental aid. Therefore, British involvement in and coverage of Latin

America is worthy of attention, and ultimately, the way in which the British press often highlights

US activity in Latin America whilst underplaying British activity in the region forms an important

part of the thesis.

It has also been pointed out that an analysis of the extent to which early European or

British representations of Latin America have been internalized by Bolivian elites is rather odd,

on the grounds that the Bolivian press is more likely to be affected by contemporary US

influences than British or European ones. The thesis does not seek to deny the influence or

importance of the US in contemporary Bolivia. However, it does seek to evaluate the degree to

which the historical external representations of Latin America that influenced early nation-

building and local political discourse are reproduced today, and since US regional hegemony

had not been established at that point, British and other European representations were more

important. In seeking commonalities with historical representations, early British and European

representations are consequently more important than contemporary US representations.

After a brief overview of the Bolivian media environment as well as the methodology

employed during the research period, chapter one provides a historical perspective on

representations of Latin America in Britain. The thesis builds upon the work of Walter Mignolo,

Mary Louise Pratt, and Kevin Foster, all of whom appraise the historical representations or

constructions of Latin America within Britain and/or Europe generally, with the latter two writers

paying particular attention to travel writing and adventure fiction respectively. This historical

overview also includes original close readings of four pieces of travel writing dating from 1830 to

1933 that feature Bolivia specifically. Chapter one thus establishes the patterns of

representation that governed early British notions of Latin America, which are then considered

in relation to the analysis of contemporary press coverage.

Chapter two, which examines the personal, focuses on a number of elections involving

Evo Morales, the current Bolivian president. The UK press, the Bolivian press, and Morales

himself have all sought to portray him as a radical leftist who represents a break from Bolivia’s

4

traditional power base. However, Morales’s presidency has been less radical than his own

rhetoric and the press coverage would suggest. Chapter two shows that contemporary British

press coverage reproduces some of the problematic aspects of early representations, such as

the objectification of Bolivian people, the portrayal of Latin America(ns) as wild and chaotic, and

a tendency to depict Latin America as a homogenous entity. Meanwhile, the contemporary

Bolivian press appears more resistant to those representations.

Chapter three examines the cultural through the prism of the collision of the coca leaf

and the drug cocaine. The coca leaf, a very mild stimulant, plays a significant role in Andean

culture, having played a part in religious and social practices for thousands of years. However,

the coca leaf is also used, along with a number of other ingredients, in the production of the

synthetic drug cocaine. While the coca leaf is Andean cultural material, cocaine is a European

scientific invention. The international interpretation of the leaf, however, equates the coca leaf

with cocaine and imposes this interpretation onto Andean culture, ignoring that culture’s strict

demarcation between the leaf and the drug. Bolivian governments, police forces, and military

have been obliged to instigate coca leaf eradication programmes, which have become a central

political issue domestically. Morales, a former coca farmer who remains the coca farmers’ trade

union leader, had strongly opposed forced eradication prior to his election as president.

Nevertheless, the Morales government has largely continued coca eradication, albeit taking an

approach that involves greater cooperation with the cocaleros (coca farmers). Chapter three

finds that British press coverage of the coca leaf and/or cocaine, where it does not simply ignore

the distinction, de-emphasizes or delegitimizes it, thereby implicitly assuming the superiority of

European knowledge and worldviews. Moreover, the coverage effectively renders Bolivia a lost

world in that it is often bound by British or US concerns rather than Bolivian concerns. The

Bolivian press – historically dominated by and catering for a white elite – does allow for the

duality of the leaf, and does not appear to regard one interpretation as superior to the other,

suggesting that the internalization of the inferiority of local culture is limited.

In chapter four, the economic is explored through coverage of Bolivia’s natural gas and

oil reserves. Bolivia’s economy has since colonial times been oriented toward a mono-

productive, extractive export sector. Silver and tin mining have historically been at the centre of

this phenomenon, though recently energy sources have superseded minerals as the focal point

5

of the economy. Despite Morales’s supposed radicalism, his economic policies have largely

continued the development of the extractive, export-led economy and thus do not represent a

major break from the neoliberal policies of previous governments. Britain’s historical relationship

with Latin America has been economic, and the lack of formal empire in Latin America meant

that Britain did not have to engage with the local population in any meaningful sense. The

concept of the capitalist vanguard – a nineteenth-century wave of mainly British explorers and

travel writers who reported back to Europe the potential of exploitable natural resources – is

central to contemporary British press coverage of Bolivia’s energy resources. Chapter four finds

that the UK press largely acts as a modern version of this capitalist vanguard, providing

investors with useful information as to the potential for profit in Bolivia. Also reproduced is the

sense that, for Britons, Latin America has been something of a blank space upon which British

concerns can be projected and discussed. To a certain extent, the Bolivian coverage

reproduces the notion that the country’s role is one of a source of raw materials to be exploited

by foreign capital, supporting the notion that resource exploitation will allow Bolivia to develop.

6

Background to the Bolivian press

This section will provide an overview of the Bolivian press, including details such as the

range of newspapers available to the public, media consumption patterns, media ownership,

levels of press freedom, and the concerns occupying the country’s media researchers and

commentators. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the corresponding aspects of the

British press and consequently an overview of the British press is not required here – though

the British press will be referred to throughout as a point of comparison. Should the reader

require additional information on the British press, a thorough overview is provided in Mick

Temple’s The British Press (2008), while Kay Richardson, Katy Parry, and John Corner (2013)

discuss the interplay between political culture and media in Political Culture and Media Genre:

Beyond the News.

The structure of the Bolivian press is rather different from that of the British press, as

are media consumption patterns. The Bolivian press underwent something of a reconfiguration

during the economic restructuring that took place from 1985 to 2005, the details of which will be

discussed in depth in chapter two. Those two decades were characterized by market-driven

economic policies. Private business was privileged as the main instrument of development,

while the power of trade unions was heavily curtailed. During this time, the public was largely

excluded from the decision-making process, as cross-party agreements became the driving-

force behind politics, in the guise of ‘negotiated democracy’, and communication between state

and society effectively broke down (Torrico Villanueva 2008: 29-33).

The media sphere became more commercialized and market-driven throughout the

1980s and 1990s. Several multi-nationals gained a foothold in television, the newspaper

industry, and advertising. Large swathes of newsprint and television air-time are given to

advertising the commercial interests of foreign energy, finance, and telecommunications

companies (Torrico Villanueva 2008: 29-33). The commercial pressures upon television, radio,

and newspapers are such that they are extremely reliant on advertising revenue, both by the

private and public sectors, and must be mindful of alienating either of their revenue bases. As

in Britain, commercial pressures dictate a degree of self-censorship to avoid loss of revenue,

and inhibit the spread of information that may be in the public interest.

7

The press in Bolivia is more geographically dispersed than in Britain, where the London-

based national press dominates. Each department has at least one major daily newspaper, and

a number of regional papers are widely available all over the country and may be regarded as

‘regional-national’ papers. This regional-national structure of the press reflects the country’s lack

of a primate city and the strong regional identities within Bolivia. Consequently, readers of

regional newspapers in Bolivia have access to local, national and international news, unlike

British readers of local newspapers, in which national and international news is given superficial

coverage. Table 1.1 lists some of the principal regional-national papers and also demonstrates

the extent of concentration of newspaper ownership in Bolivia.

TABLE 1.1: GEOGRAPHIC STRUCTURE AND OWNERSHIP OF THE BOLIVIAN PRESS

Newspaper Department Ownership

El Diario La Paz Carrasco Family (Bolivian)

La Razón La Paz Grupo Prisma (Spain)

La Prensa La Paz Canelas Group (Bolivian)

El Deber Santa Cruz Grupo Prisma

El Nuevo Día Santa Cruz Grupo Prisma

Los Tiempos Cochambamba Canelas Group

Opinión Cochambamba COBOCE (Bolivian)

Correo del Sur Chuquisaca Canelas Group

Source: Soruco and Pinto (2009: 98)

Historically, Bolivia’s print media has reflected the country’s power structure and racial

stratifications. Gonzalo Soruco and Juliet Pinto (2009: 90) have made a distinction between the

white, intellectual journalists with their ‘lofty and abstract analyses’ and the mixed-race reporters

and press-workers that perform the routine news-gathering and production tasks. As is the case

elsewhere in Latin America, low literacy rates discouraged the emergence of a popular press,

and the newspaper market remains devoid of mass-circulation tabloids. Those tabloids that do

exist, such as La Paz’s Extra, do not sell in large quantities and have very little real political

influence in the way The Sun or The Mirror have in the UK. Bolivia’s dominant newspapers are

of a register which excludes the poorer and less educated, and regular readership tends to be

confined to the wealthier parts of society. This would suggest that the corpus of British

newspaper articles used in this study will be drawn from a range of sources that have a much

wider demographic than the corpus of Bolivian newspaper articles. Yet, for reasons which will

be clarified in the section relating to the methodology employed in this research project, British

8

tabloids are mostly absent from the analysis, meaning that the corpus of articles from both

countries is written for an elite audience.

As demonstrated by Table 1.2, literacy rates have improved significantly in recent

years.

TABLE 1.2: LITERACY RATES IN BOLIVIA

% of people aged 15 and above unable to read or write

1980¹ 31

1999¹ 15

2008² 9.3

20123 8.8

Sources: ¹ Grindle and Domingo (2003: 249)

² Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (2011: 177) 3

Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (2014: 210)

Nevertheless, newspaper readership has not increased proportionately. Whilst this can be partly

attributed to working-class Bolivians simply not being in the habit of reading newspapers, cost of

newspapers also plays a part. Relative to income, newspapers are quite expensive. While

televisions and radios clearly necessitate some financial outlay upon purchase, second hand

sets are readily available, and access to content is free. In recent years, television has

overtaken radio as the Bolivian public’s principal provider of news. However, radio remains an

important source of information in remote rural areas, where severe poverty and poor

infrastructure render access to television more difficult than in urban areas.

Since Bolivian media organizations tend not to publish circulation or audience figures,

survey data will be used to illustrate use of media within Bolivia. The survey was undertaken by

Latinobarómetro in 2010. It is possible to extrapolate general trends from these data, though the

results are biased toward urban areas, where much of the survey was carried out.1 Table 1.3

shows that television and radio news are by a significant margin the two biggest sources of

political information, while newspapers are fifth.

1 595, or 49.59%, of the 1200 respondents were from the cities of Cochabamba, El Alto, La Paz, and Santa Cruz. These

four cities are home to just 30.84% of Bolivia’s population, so the geographical distribution of respondents does not correspond to the geographic distribution of Bolivia’s population.

9

TABLE 1.3: POPULAR SOURCES OF POLITICAL INFORMATION IN BOLIVIA

How do you keep yourself informed about politics? (¿Cómo se informa Ud. de los asuntos políticos?)

2

Television 82.4%

Radio 64.4%

Family 48.7%

Friends 40.8%

Newspapers 29.6%

Colleagues 17.6%

Internet 10.8%

People I study with 5.8%

None 2.2%

Others 0.5%

1200 respondents

Source: Latinobarómetro 2010

As summarized in Table 1.4 below, respondents were also asked how many days a

week they used a particular news medium. Almost a quarter of respondents watch television

news every day, whilst fewer than nine per cent do not watch any television news. Radio usage

is a little more evenly spread, with a little over a quarter of respondents not listening to radio

news at all, and just over one-fifth listening to radio news every day. Data regarding newspaper

readership, the most important in terms source in terms of this study, is markedly different, and

shows that over half of those questioned do not read a newspaper at all, and just three per cent

read one every day. Use of the internet as a news source is also quite limited, with almost three

quarters of respondents indicating that they never used the internet as a news source.

TABLE 1.4: MEDIA CONSUMPTION PATTERNS IN BOLIVIA

Number of days you watch news on

television (Cantidad de días que miró las noticias en la TV)

Number of days you listen to news on the radio

(Cantidad de días en que oyó las noticias en las

radios)

Number of days you read news in a news paper (Cantidad de días en que leyó las

noticias en los diarios)

Number of days you read news on the

Internet (Cantidad de días en que leyó las noticias políticas en

Internet)

None 8.80% None 26.70% None 54.00% None 73.40%

1 day 3.60% 1 day 4.50% 1 day 15.80% 1 day 4.90%

2 days 9.60% 2 days 10.80% 2 days 10.30% 2 days 3.90%




2 Respondents could choose all answers that applied, so the total amounts to more than 100 per cent.

10

Number of days you watch news on

television (Cantidad de días que miró las noticias en la TV)

Number of days you listen to news on the radio

(Cantidad de días en que oyó las noticias en las

radios)

Number of days you read news in a news paper (Cantidad de días en que leyó las

noticias en los diarios)

Number of days you read news on the

Internet (Cantidad de días en que leyó las noticias políticas en

Internet)



No answer/ Refused

1.50% No answer/ Refused

1.80% No answer/ Refused

4.60% No answer/ Refused 6.40%

Don´t know 0.30% Don´t know 1.10% Don´t know 1.90% Don´t know 4.40%

1200 respondents

Source: Latinobarómetro 2010

Yet, despite the relatively low levels of newspaper readership, Bolivia’s print media wields a

considerable amount of agenda-setting power, not least since newspaper readership is higher

amongst the wealthier and more powerful sections of society, and so influence both the

government and radio and television news (Grabow and Rieck 2008: 147). Similarly, despite the

decline of the UK’s print media as the internet becomes an increasingly popular news source,

data from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) shows the websites which correspond to the

British newspapers used in this study are extremely popular (Turvill 2014), and given that the

content of the print editions are often the same as the online editions, mainstream UK

newspapers remain a powerful force.

Freedom of the press is a matter of debate in Bolivia, yet despite the significant

changes to media ownership in recent decades, media ownership is less contested than in the

UK. Instead, recent work by Bolivia’s media researchers, such as Carlos Camacho Azurduy

(2007) and Erick Torrico Villanueva of the Observatorio Nacional de Medios (ONADEM) (2011),

has centred on access to information and communication from a human rights perspective.

Their work examines these rights on both individual and collective levels, and questions the

citizen’s role as both a consumer and producer of media. Their work, which documents the

progression of legislative measures which have guaranteed freedom of information and

expression in Bolivia, is approached from a bottom-up perspective. In contrast, debates

concerning media ownership in the UK, which are effectively debates over control of information

rather than access to information, tend to approach the matter from a top-down perspective.

11

Public opposition to and dissatisfaction with the market-driven economic policies

mentioned earlier played a significant role in the emergence and election of the Evo Morales-led

Movimimiento al Socialismo (MAS), which will also be discussed in more detail in chapter two.

The MAS’s electoral appeal lay in its promises to both alter the racially-stratified nature of

Bolivian society, and undo the neo-liberal process. The party has a rather fraught relationship

with the commercial media, which it regards as an ally of the right. Morales has made several

vehement public attacks on the impartiality of the commercial news media, and in turn the

media has accused Morales of impeding freedom of expression. Commercial broadcasters are

particularly critical of the government (Freedom House 2014). The MAS government has

invested heavily in state radio and television, and in 2009 launched a partisan state newspaper,

Cambio.

Table 1.5 indicates the international ranking of Bolivia in the Reporters Sans Frontières

(RSF) and Freedom House press freedom indices, from 2009 to 2014. Data relating to other

Latin American countries are provided for comparison. RSF ranks countries in order of press

freedom, with the country ranked at number 1 having greatest degree of press freedom, and

number 179 (or 180 from 2014 onwards) having the least free press. The RSF index

consistently ranks Bolivia as having similar levels of press freedom to Ecuador and Peru, but

significantly lower levels than either Argentina or Chile. Freedom House, on the other hand,

assigns each country scores out of 100: 0 indicates a very free press and 100 indicates a press

with little freedom. From 2009 to 2014, the Bolivian press as ‘partly free’ by Freedom House,

along with Argentina and Peru. In contrast, Chile was consistently ranked as ‘free’ between

2009 and 2011, and ‘partly free’ from 2012 onward. Ecuador slipped from ‘partly free’ to ‘not

free’ in 2013.

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TABLE 1.5: PRESS FREEDOM IN BOLIVIA AND OTHER LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES

Bolivia 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009

Reporters Sans Frontières3 94 109 108 108 103 95

Freedom House4 48 48 47 46 43 42

Argentina 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009

Reporters Sans Frontières 55 54 47 47 55 47

Freedom House 51 52 50 51 49 49

Chile 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009


Freedom House 31 31 31 29 30 29

Ecuador 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009


Freedom House 62 61 58 52 47 44

Peru 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009


Freedom House 44 43 44 43 44 44

A particularly controversial piece of legislation introduced by the MAS government is the

Ley contra el racismo y toda forma de discriminación, which the government has stated is

designed to prevent racist portrayals of indigenous people in the media. Outlets publishing or

broadcasting material that breaches the law may be fined or shut down, whilst individual

journalists may face prison terms. Media outlets are liable for offensive remarks made by

interviewees or quoted sources. Critics of the law have argued that it restricts freedom of the

press, citing its effective prohibition of journalists’ right to appeal to regulatory bodies (Freedom

House 2014). Violence against journalists is not uncommon. Ten journalists were physically

3 Reporters sans frontières is an NGO registered in Paris. The organization’s staff are often, though not exclusively,

former journalists. The organization’s annual accounts are summarized on its website, www.rsf.org, and indicate that in 2009, self-generated funding, primarily through the sale of books and calendars, accounted for fifty-eight per cent of its income. Private donations, including those from the Sigrid Rausing Trust, the Overbrook Foundation and the US National Endowment for Democracy, accounted for fourteen per cent of funding. Public grants from bodies such as the EU, UNESCO, and the French foreign ministry accounted for eighteen per cent of funding. Income from corporate donors and sponsors such as EDF was fourteen per cent of funding. 4 Freedom House is a non-profit organization based in New York. The organization’s website, www.freedomhouse.org,

states that ‘Freedom House receives funding from a mix of private foundations and individuals, as well as from democratic governments. In regards to U.S. government funding, Freedom House has received grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department for specific projects and publications, usually as a result of public competition. Freedom House has also received grants from other governments and international bodies, including Australia, Ireland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Norway, the European Union, and the United Nations Democracy Fund. Freedom House never accepts funds in the form of contracts from government institutions, including the U.S., and never functions as an extension of any government. Freedom House does not accept funds for its research and analysis from any governments of countries evaluated in that research. For this reason, its global surveys, Freedom in the World and Freedom of the Press, are entirely privately funded’.

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attacked in 2012, most notably in the case of Fernando Vidal, the station manager of Radio

Popular in Yacuiba, who was set on fire by intruders. Though many attacks on journalists are

unsolved, both the MAS and the opposition have been accused of being responsible for or

inciting violence or verbal attacks against media workers (Freedom House 2014).

One important difference between the British and Bolivian press relates to the the

journalist’s perceived role in society. As discussed by Daniel C. Hallin and Stylianos

Papathanassopoulos (2002), journalists in Latin America have traditionally held an advocacy

role that contrasts with the Anglo-American model of professional neutrality. That is, where the

Anglo-American model – at least in theory – assumes the journalist to be a neutral, objective

observer, in the Latin American model a lack of impartiality on the part of the journalist has

historically not been regarded as problematic, and ‘[…] journalism in southern Europe and Latin

America tends to emphasize commentary from a distinct political perspective’ (Hallin and

Papathanassopoulos 2002: 177). Of course, the ostensible neutrality of the Anglo-American

press is debatable, and British newspapers tend to have an explicit political alignment.

Moreover, the ‘diffusion of the Anglo-American model’ and the ‘traditions of passive reporting

that can be an adaptive strategy in periods of dictatorship’ (Hallin and Papathanassopoulos

2002: 177) mean that there has been some movement away from the advocacy model in Latin

America. Nevertheless, this difference suggests that one should expect the Bolivian reporting

analysed in this thesis to contain a greater degree of commentary and editorializing than the

British reporting. However, as will be demonstrated throughout, the opposite is true.

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Methodology

As explained in the introduction, this thesis investigates whether historical patterns of

representation of Bolivia in Britain are repeated in contemporary British press coverage of

Bolivia, and if those representations, internalized by Bolivian elites in fashioning their own

conceptions of national identity and notions of development, are also reproduced by the Bolivian

press. Originally, the purpose of the research project was to examine press representations of

Evo Morales as an individual political figure, and research began by collecting a corpus of

relevant newspaper articles from the UK press.

Creation of a British corpus

A basic search for articles containing the term “Evo Morales” was carried out using

Newsbank, a database of newspapers from the UK and Ireland. The search yielded some

duplicate articles, chiefly those of the Guardian and Financial Times. The reason for the

duplication of Guardian articles is unclear; however the duplication of Financial Times articles

can generally be attributed to the fact that that newspaper has several print editions along with

an online edition,1 and articles appearing in more than one edition appear in Newsbank a

corresponding number of times. In order to preserve a wholly British corpus, the London edition

was given precedence, followed by the online edition. Articles that were not published in either

of those editions were removed from the sample entirely. Other items removed from the sample

include readers’ letters.

Newsbank is not an exhaustive source of articles published by the British and Irish

press. Rather, it is a catalogue of news items published in the print editions of fifty-one national

and regional newspapers, along with videos issued by the news agency Reuters. Nevertheless,

the number of articles available through Newsbank is large enough to allow a representative

sample of the coverage of Morales and his government. Between 1998 and 2010 Morales was

mentioned in a total of 1115 articles across forty-one newspapers. The corpus was reduced

further by excluding Irish and regional British newspapers.2 Interestingly, as result of removing

1 The print editions of the Financial Times include the London edition, European edition, Asian edition, Middle East

edition and US edition. 2 Regional titles were excluded because, with the exception of some Scottish newspapers such as the Glasgow-based

Herald, which despite being considered regional in terms of the UK market carry out the role of national papers, coverage of international news in the regional press is limited. Thus in terms of this study it makes sense to omit

15

Irish newspapers from the corpus, tabloid newspapers are virtually absent from the corpus of

articles. The newspaper market in the Republic of Ireland incorporates Irish editions of UK

newspapers, both tabloid and broadsheet, in addition to indigenous newspapers. Removing

Irish newspapers from the corpus involved removing items that only appeared in the Irish

editions of British newspapers. In 2009, an Irish citizen, Michael Martin Dwyer, was killed in a

police raid on a hotel in Santa Cruz, along with Eduardo Rozsa Flores, a citizen of Croatia, and

Arpad Magyarosi, from Romania. The Bolivian government and security forces claimed that the

three had been involved in a plot to overthrow Morales, though the facts of the case are a

matter of dispute and lie outside the scope of this thesis. The case was given widespread

coverage in the Irish press, including in the Irish editions of the UK tabloids. That the Dwyer

story was of significant interest to the Irish media, but not the UK media, is not particularly

interesting or surprising. However, it is interesting to note that, after Dwyer’s death, the Irish

editions of the UK tabloids began to carry stories about Morales that were completely unrelated

to the Dwyer story, such as his appearances at football matches. The UK editions did not carry

these items. Effectively, Morales was introduced to Irish tabloid readers through the Dwyer

story, and was deemed of general interest to those readers thereafter. Once these stories were

removed from the corpus on the grounds they did not feature in the UK press, the corpus

became virtually devoid of tabloid newspapers.

The corpus was then catalogued according to subject matter. Where an article

encompassed two or more categories, it was included only in the category which was its main

focus. This meant that the choice of category was somewhat subjective, though the same

criteria were applied to all such articles. The corpus was reduced yet again by selecting three

categories for further analysis: elections, coca, and energy. Each category corresponds to one

chapter of this thesis. These categories were chosen due to their frequency, and because they

constituted categories in which the majority of articles specifically concerned Morales. Other

categories, such as ‘Other Latin American elections/politics’, contained more articles, but they

usually only mentioned Morales in passing.

regional titles in favour of the nationals. Furthermore, given the sheer volume of regional titles, there is no individual regional newspaper which can overcome the dominance of the national press, a dominance which is as much about power and influence over public opinion as it is about readership figures.

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The chapters that follow will show that the British corpus is smaller than the Bolivian

corpus, particularly in the case of chapter two, largely since the Bolivian press naturally provides

more coverage of Bolivian news than the British press provides. Nevertheless, the British

corpus is large enough to be representative of the tone and content found in the UK press

coverage of Bolivia, and therefore large enough to allow for meaningful conclusions to be drawn

from it.

Creation of a Bolivian corpus

Since there is no equivalent of the database Newsbank for Bolivian newspapers, and

the online archives of individual titles are limited, the collection of a corpus of Bolivian articles

necessitated a trip to the Archivo y Biblioteca Nacionales de Bolivia (ABNB) in Sucre. Out of the

titles available at the ABNB, six of Bolivia’s ‘regional-nationals’, as defined in the previous

section, were selected: La Razón and El Diario of La Paz, El Mundo and El Deber of Santa

Cruz, Correo del Sur of Sucre, and Los Tiempos of Cochabamba. Since the search for articles

required checking ten years of printed newspapers, rather than a simple database search, it

was decided to expedite matters by looking at only certain dates, based upon notable incidents

and developments related to the three categories. This means that the Bolivian articles are

clustered around certain months, in contrast to the UK articles which are largely distributed in a

more haphazard fashion – particularly those UK articles that relate to coca. It also means that

some years were omitted entirely. Furthermore, the date criteria resulted in a pattern whereby

each set of dates yielded articles mostly related to one category, though any articles relating to

the other two topics that fell within the selected dates were included in the corpus. For example,

December 2005 was targeted due to that month’s presidential elections. Given that the election

was the dominant story that month, the vast majority of articles found relate to the election,

though a very small number of coca- and energy-related articles were found too. Of course,

given the selection criteria, the Bolivian newspaper articles used in this study are not exhaustive

of the articles published by the Bolivian press on a given topic.

Additionally, since Morales was at the time the focus of the research, only articles that

referenced Morales in either the headline or sub-heading were chosen. After December 2005,

when Morales was first elected president, this was further restricted to front-page articles and

17

any related inside content, on the basis that, as president, Morales would feature in the news

more frequently than he did as a member of Congress and as the head of the cocalero union.

It was after my return to the UK that it became apparent the focus on Morales as an

individual would become a secondary aspect of the research, since it was felt that examining

coverage of Bolivia in a wider sense was a richer and more interesting vein of research.

Consequently, while the Bolivian corpus is large enough to constitute a representative sample

of the content of the six newspapers, using Morales as key part of the selection criteria has at

times created a selection bias that places limitations upon the conclusions that may be drawn

from the data, since it may have increased the proportion of quotes by Morales and his

supporters versus that of their opponents. Such limitations are highlighted at certain points

during the chapters that follow.

In addition to involving media analysis techniques and a corpus of contemporary

newspaper articles, the research incorporates postcolonial/decolonial theory, nineteenth-century

travel writing, and a small amount of literary criticism in order to establish the historical patterns

of representation. These traditions, and the rationale for using them, are outlined in the next

chapter, but prior to that an outline of a media analysis framework that has proved central to the

research process – namely, Norman Fairclough’s work on discourse representation in media

discourse – is provided.

Discourse representation in media discourse

The linguist Norman Fairclough’s work on discourse representation in media discourse

(1995a: 54-69) provides a useful framework for analyzing the use of sources in print media.3

Firstly, Fairclough demarcates primary discourse from secondary discourse. Primary discourse

is the representing or reporting discourse, and secondary discourse the represented or reported

discourse. In other words, secondary discourse is that which has been said by actors

subsequently quoted, paraphrased, or cited as sources of information. Fairclough goes on to

discuss the relationship between primary and secondary discourse; the extent to which they

intersect; and the ways which secondary discourse is contextualized, shaping the reader’s

3 In turn, Fairclough draws upon the work of Leach and Short (1981), McHale (1978), Volosinov (1973) and Quirk et al

(1972).

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understanding of it. Fairclough’s framework is comprised of six parameters: mode, boundary

maintenance, stylisticity, situationality, setting and formulation, which are explained below.

Mode

Mode classifies the ways in which secondary discourse is represented. Fairclough

separates direct discourse (DD) from indirect discourse (ID). DD may be made into ID by: using

a clause introduced by ‘that’ so that the secondary discourse becomes subordinate to the

‘reporting clause’; shifting from first and second person pronouns to third person pronouns;

using a deictic shift – for example, ‘here’ becomes ‘there’; and changing tenses.

‘“We did it without violating human rights”, says Morales’ (Independent on Sunday 27

May 2007), and ‘“La lucha será en defensa de la soberanía, y la dignidad nacional”, dijo

Morales Ayma […]’ (Correo del Sur 17 January 2000: 12) are examples of DD. It is possible to

change both to ID by rendering them thus: Morales says that they did it without violating human

rights and Morales Ayma dijo que la lucha será en defensa de la soberanía, y la dignidad

nacional.

Fairclough labels cases where there is ‘slipping’ between modes DD(S). Using the

same examples, DD(S) would be Morales says that they did it ‘without violating human rights’ or

Morales Ayma dijo que la lucha sera ‘en defensa de la soberanía, y la dignidad nacional’.

Finally, he uses the term unsignalled discourse, or UNSIG, for cases where secondary

discourse is featured in primary discourse without being explicitly marked as represented

discourse. UNSIG, in the case of the same two examples, would be The cocaleros did it without

violating human rights or La lucha será en defensa de la soberanía, y la dignidad nacional.

Examples of UNSIG are typically found in newspaper headlines, most often in cases where the

sub-editor has chosen a statement made by somebody quoted in the body of an article as the

article’s headline, without using quotation marks or other devices that explicitly mark it as

secondary discourse.

For this thesis, the most important difference between the various modes is that DD and

DD(S) clearly distinguish between the voice of the journalist or news outlet and the voice of the

of the person whose discourse is being represented, while ID and UNSIG do not make the

distinction between those voices clear. In general, ID and UNSIG indicate a commitment to the

19

full ideational meaning of the secondary discourse, although Fairclough points out that this does

not hold consistently. Nevertheless, mode is central to the concept of boundary maintenance,

the notion of which forms the most significant part of the framework for this analysis.

Boundary maintenance

Boundary maintenance is the degree to which primary and secondary discourses

remain distinct from one another. Returning once more to the examples above, Morales’s

statements could be represented in newspaper headlines as The cocaleros did it without

violating human rights, says Morales and La lucha será en defensa de la soberanía, y la

dignidad nacional, dijo Morales. In both cases, the mode has been transformed from the original

DD to ID. Moreover, the discourses have fused through minor vocabulary changes. Fairclough

describes the transformation of secondary discourse from its original state – as uttered – to

being represented through ID as incorporation. In other words, the use of ID in discourse

representation incorporates the secondary discourse into the primary discourse. Meanwhile,

secondary discourse overwhelms the primary discourse in the UNSIG cases The cocaleros did

it without violating human rights or La lucha será en defensa de la soberanía, y la dignidad

nacional. Through UNSIG, secondary discourse has a direct influence upon the primary

discourse. Fairclough terms this process dissemination.

Where boundary maintenance is low, incorporation and dissemination occur frequently.

UNSIG is the main, though not exclusive, mode of dissemination, and dissemination and

incorporation may occur concurrently. While it is easy to identify instances of DD, DD(S), and

ID, it can be difficult to identify UNSIG. If UNSIG occurs in a headline, the body of the article

may reveal the headline to be based on secondary discourse, thus allowing UNSIG to be

identified. However, instances of UNSIG embedded in the body of an article may be impossible

to identify as such, since first-hand exposure to secondary discourse does not take place within

normal reading practice. Therefore, instances of UNSIG would be taken to be primary discourse

by most readers.

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Stylisticity, situationality, and setting

Stylisticity, situationality, and setting are closely related. Fairclough defines stylisticity as

gauging ‘the extent to which the non-ideational, interpersonal meanings of secondary discourse

are represented’ while situationality assesses ‘the degree to which the context of situation of

secondary discourse is represented’ (Fairclough 1995a: 60). Setting concerns the extent to, and

means by which, the recipient’s interpretation of secondary discourse is influenced by locating it

within a particular textual context.

For instance, by adding to one of the original examples of DD, one can demonstrate

each of these devices: ‘La lucha será en defensa de la soberanía, y la dignidad nacional’,

advirtió gravemente el diputado uninominal y dirigente cocalero Morales Ayma. Setting can be

seen in the use of the verb advertir, which controls the readers’ interpretation of what is said by

underlining the illocutionary power of the secondary discourse. The use of gravemente allows

stylisticity to contribute to this setting, emphasizing the seriousness of Morales’s words. The

representation of Morales as both congressman and leader of the cocaleros is an example of

situationality, and provides a certain degree of legitimacy to Morales’s words. If, to give a rather

extreme point of comparison, Morales was described as ‘el enemigo del gobierno', situationality

would completely delegitimize him.

Formulation

Finally, Fairclough identifies an additional device called formulation, which generally

takes the form of a précis of secondary discourse – usually in headlines – prior to a fuller

representation later in the article. In instances in which UNSIG can be identified in a headline

upon reading the rest of the article, UNSIG and formulation coincide. If the UNSIG examples

The cocaleros did it without violating human rights or La lucha será en defensa de la soberanía,

y la dignidad nacional appeared as headlines, and the original DD examples followed in main

text, the headlines would be examples of both UNSIG and formulation.

Fairclough’s framework is a particularly suitable analytical tool for the articles that

comprise the corpus since it allows for a direct comparison of the extent to which and the ways

in which certain actors are quoted by the British press and the Bolivian press. Most importantly,

it allows for an exploration of the extent to which the British press excludes non-Western

21

discourses, and consequently non-Western worldviews. Fairclough’s framework lends a

quantitative element to the research that contrasts with the qualitative analysis allowed for by

the traditions outlined in chapter one. Chapters two, three, and four feature several tables which

list the number of times specific political actors are quoted or cited as sources of information as

well as the corresponding modes of representation. These tables are included in order to

provide a more accurate overview of discourse representation figures than an impressionistic

view would provide, and proved invaluable to the analysis since some particularly memorable

quotations read during initial close readings created the belief that certain actors featured more

frequently than the subsequent data collection showed. It should be noted that quantitative

analysis dominates chapter two, particularly when compared to the quantitative/qualitative

balance in chapters three and four. Moreover, the next chapter – chapter one – is exclusively

qualitative or interpretive in nature, making the quantitive nature of chapter two even more stark.

This is largely due to the nature of the articles examined – those used in chapter two simply

proved less suitable for qualitative analysis than those used in subsequent chapters. That is, the

articles examined in chapter two themselves contained less discussion and analysis, and more

straightforward reporting, than those examined in chapters three and four. As a result, the

scope for qualitative analysis was reduced. Nevertheless, the chapter is useful insofar as it

provides a contrast to the others, and, given that it examines the coverage of three general

elections, allows a direct comparison of how coverage changes over time.

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Chapter One

Representations of Latin America in Britain: A historical

perspective

This thesis, as noted in the introduction, seeks to establish to what extent contemporary

British press treatment of Bolivia and Evo Morales continues historical patterns of

representations of Latin America and Latin Americans in Britain. These historical renderings are

to be found in travel writing and economic surveys of the 1800s and early 1900s, as well as

works of literature set in, or ostensibly ‘about’, Latin America. The thesis also asks if the Bolivian

press exhibits signs that Bolivia’s Creole elite have internalized British and European

perceptions of Latin America and Latin Americans.1 The degree of such internalization is to be

gauged via a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis – the qualitative framework

has been established in the previous section relating to methodology, while the qualitative

framework is established throughout this chapter.

Therefore, this chapter examines historical representations of Latin America by

discussing Walter Mignolo’s The Idea of Latin America (2005), Mary Louise Pratt’s Imperial

Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (1992), and Kevin Foster’s Lost Worlds: Latin

America and the Imagining of Empire (2009). Through these writers, the research incorporates

postcolonial and decolonial theory, nineteenth-century travel writing, and literary criticism into

the discussion of historical patterns of representation. Each of these writers offers a critique of

the historical representations or constructions of Latin America within Britain and/or Europe, and

though the articulation of those critiques may be radically different, the conclusions often

overlap. Following the discussion of these works are close readings of the writing of four British

travellers to Latin America in the 1800s and early 1900s, all of whom spent at least part of their

trip in Bolivia. By establishing the patterns of representation that governed early British notions

of Latin America and its people, this chapter should provide a more in-depth historical context

for the subsequent analysis of press articles than a straightforward application of media analysis

1 The term Creole – Criollo in Spanish – is used throughout this thesis, to refer Bolivian-born people of Spanish descent,

i.e., white Bolivians. Where applicable, it also refers to white Latin Americans in general. The term is generally used in a historical context and in relation to those Bolivians of Spanish descent who comprised the country’s post-colonial elite. When used in a more contemporary context, the term refers to the sense of nationhood and identity as constructed by those Creole elites. Though the term is not entirely unproblematic, it remains in use in contemporary Bolivia and is frequently employed by the Aymara radical Felipe Quispe. Since the term is used frequently in the work of Walter Mignolo and Mary Louise Pratt, it is utilized here for the sake of consistency.

23

techniques would allow. For the sake of brevity, the relevance of each aspect of historical

patterns of representation to contemporary press coverage will be introduced at the end of this

chapter, rather than several references being made throughout the text. The later analysis will

demonstrate that many of the features of early British representations of Latin America are

reproduced in contemporary British press coverage, while the Bolivian press shows signs of

both internalization of and resistance to such representations.

The work of Mignolo, Pratt, and Foster has been useful for a number of reasons.

Crucially, all three discuss (Spanish-speaking) Latin America specifically. For example, while

the works of Edward Said and Frantz Fanon are central to the field of postcolonialism, their

geographical focus lies elsewhere. Mignolo acknowledges both Said and Fanon, though it

should be noted that he is often at odds with Said in particular, as will be discussed later in this

chapter. Furthermore, Mignolo’s output, whilst often contentious, better reflects current debates

taking place in Latin America, where emphasis is being placed on decolonial theory as opposed

to postcolonial theory. Similarly, Pratt and Foster’s critique of British output on Latin America, as

opposed to US output, is more directly relevant to this study than the work of writers such as

Mary C. Beltrán, Frederick B. Pike, or Rachel Adams, all of whom examine representations of

Latin America(ns) in the US and/or the borderlands. Taken together, Mignolo, Pratt, and

Foster’s work demonstrates, as one will see, that British perceptions of Latin America have

significant historical traction, and are largely consistent across genres. Foster’s work in

particular shows how perceptions hold across literature, film, and news media; more

importantly, his account of British perceptions of Latin America throughout the twentieth century

bridges a temporal gap that would otherwise see this thesis jump straight from Victorian travel

writing to contemporary press coverage. As noted above, though the articulation of Mignolo,

Pratt, and Foster’s ideas may be radically different, similar themes emerge from those ideas. Of

course, each of the three writers belongs to a specific school of thought that has its own internal

debates.

As will be discussed later in this chapter, travel writers were amongst the first Britons to

write extensively from and about Latin America, and were seen as authoritative sources of

factual information. Consequently, though at first sight nineteenth century travel writing and

contemporary journalism may appear to have little in common, their similar roles at different

24

points in time warrants a comparison of the two. Indeed, as will be demonstrated throughout this

thesis, though the language may be more politically correct, contemporary journalism has much

in common with nineteenth century travel writing.

Britain in Latin America: Informal imperialism

Early British representations of Latin America were influenced by Britain’s relationship

with the region, of which a very brief overview is provided here. Britain had few colonies on

mainland South and Central America. Only British Honduras (now Belize) and Guyana were

part of the British Empire (Brown 2008: 9). However, Britain was not completely absent from the

region. Its interests were generally economic, rather than military, and largely those of private

individuals and companies as opposed to the British state.

Britain’s involvement in Latin America has been called informal empire, capitalist

imperialism, and informal imperialism, terms which denote ‘non-military forms of domination

through finance’ (Ramirez 2007: 5-6). Those terms are rather contentious and have fallen in and

out of favour over the years, though they appear to have recently gained currency once more

(Brown 2008: 1-8). Thus I use the terms with some caution here, though there is little doubt that

British companies have sought to accumulate wealth via investment in and trade with Latin

America.

British involvement in Latin America began with the ‘adventures, lootings and

“discoveries” of Walter Ralegh and then Francis Drake’ (Brown 2008: 8), yet it was not until the

region’s wars of independence that links between it and Britain began to fully develop. Leaders

of the independence movements sought financial backing, while British business sought to

benefit from Spain’s declining influence (Pratt 1992: 147). Latin America appeared an attractive

opportunity to British investors, with its raw materials such as tin, and commodities like sugar

and tobacco. British companies invested heavily in and profited hugely from the region’s

burgeoning infrastructure, particularly the railways. Moreover, the region constituted a major

‘new’ export market for British manufactured goods, especially heavy machinery (Ramirez 2007:

2; 8-10 and 13). It was the area of finance that was most lucrative to the British, as Britain’s

financial houses supplied the vast majority of loans taken out by Latin American governments in

the 1800s. According to Mary Louise Pratt (1992: 147), ‘[by] the late 1880s several countries,

25

including [Peru, Argentina, and Chile], had become complete economic dependencies of Britain,

or rather of the investors in the British Stock Exchange’.

Britain also sought cultural influence in post-independence Latin America. Luz Elena

Ramirez (2007: 4) highlights the spread of British ideas, fashions, and habits; the spread of

English as the language of trade; and notes that the various Protestant missions which sought

to ‘civilize’ Latin America(ns) made a particularly strong impact.

The Idea of Latin America

In The Idea of Latin America (2005), Walter Mignolo critiques the colonial underpinnings

of the concept of Latin America, and the dominance of Western assumptions relating to

knowledge and history. Mignolo argues that the very name “Latin America”, and subsequently

all meaning attached to it, is a colonial construct that obscures the geopolitics of knowledge. He

holds that, to deconstruct the idea of Latin America, we must examine the world from the

perspective of coloniality, not modernity. Perspectives of modernity, such as Marxism or

Christianity, are perspectives of Europe, though they may interpret a given event differently.

Here Mignolo makes clear that while Marxism and Christianity are obviously radically different

schools of thought, they are grounded in European worldviews and consequently any wholesale

application of either perspective to Latin America is flawed. Perspectives of coloniality are

rooted in the traditions, experiences, and memories of the colonized, and the historical, ethical,

and theoretical consequences of colonialism. Mignolo argues that the colonized have been

present in history as objects, not subjects; that is, epistemic power differentials mean that those

societies that did not use alphanumeric systems of communication or one of the dominant

European languages were outside History. Effectively:

History is a privilege of European modernity and in order to have History you have to let yourself be colonized which means allowing yourself [...] to be subsumed by a perspective [...] that is modelled on the history of modern Europe.

(Mignolo 2007: xii)

Mignolo posits that the contemporary idea of Latin America works in conjunction with

the ideas of Europe or the US (or “America”), and that to reconfigure one, we must reconfigure

all. He argues that the Americas as we understand them today could not exist without European

expansion, yet it was the very “discovery” of the region and subsequent genocide of the

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indigenous and African slaves that provided the impetus for modernity, and indeed its sinister

underside, coloniality. Hence, deconstructing the idea of Latin America reveals the basis for the

West and the modern world order.

Mignolo discusses the now well-established argument that Latin America was invented,

not discovered, exploring the power structures and colonial logic that led to the dominant

European discourse of “discovery” in the first place. Discovery and invention belong to two

different paradigms, rooted in the geopolitics of knowledge. Discovery is the triumphalist

discourse which reflects European imperial ambitions and views modernity as benign and

admirable. Invention introduces the perspectives of the colonized, who ‘are expected to follow

the ascending progress of a history to which they have the feeling of not belonging’ (Mignolo

2005: 4). The discourse of discovery and modernity, and the implication of the universal nature

of the European experience – and hence the erasure of the experience of the colonized –

helped establish the colonial matrix of power, and justified violence as bringing civilization to the

Americas. The same understanding of modernity would later give rise to another attempt to

impose European models and goals on Latin America, in the guise of development and market-

driven democracy. The perspective of modernity and discourse of discovery obscures coloniality,

although coloniality was necessary for the triumph of modernity. The invention of America

justified European expansion and thus furnished the wealth of European nations and the

lifestyles of their elites – lifestyles that came to be regarded as the ultimate goals of humanity.

Not only was coloniality necessary for the advance of modernity in Europe, but the notion of

modernity as a model and goal justified imperial expansion as a means to bring modernity to

those outside Europe. Mignolo argues that this included renaming the land and, crucially, the

people in it, reducing heterogeneous groups to the catch-all labels of Indian and Black. He

maintains that coloniality reveals a previously hidden logic that permits domination and

exploitation couched in terms of universally beneficial salvation (or civilization) and

modernization (or progress).

To a certain extent, Mignolo’s hypothesis provides a very rigid demarcation between

European thinking and indigenous thinking, allowing for no commonalities between the two. In

this way his work differs radically from more dialectical readings such as those of the Peruvian

intellectual José Carlos Mariátegui. Mariátegui was a committed Marxist who argued that the

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communal nature of land ownership in indigenous culture, combined with what he regarded as

the inherently revolutionary nature of the indigenous, meant that socialism would thrive in Peru

despite the lack of large urban proletariat or capital accumulation (Mariátegui 1991: 35-104). In

this way, Mariátegui applied a materialist approach that was rooted in European Marxism to the

Peruvian national reality whilst accommodating idealist notions of nature and spirit. Not only

does Mariátegui’s approach accommodate both ‘European’ and ‘indigenous’ thinking, his

application of such thinking to the specificity of the Peru contrasts with Mignolo’s more general

approach to Latin America as a whole. Yet Mignolo sees no contradiction, having argued

elsewhere that the notion of coloniality is impossible without Mariátegui’s connection between

colonial history and capitalism – clearly situating himself within the same intellectual tradition as

Mariátegui (Mignolo 2012: para. 19 of 120).

The logic of coloniality operates via four broad, interdependent channels: the economic,

the political, the civic, and the epistemic. For example, the appropriation of resources (the

economic) involves control of authority (the political), gender (the civic), and knowledge (the

epistemic). Mignolo argues that the sixteenth-century conception of the Americas as a “New

World” and therefore Nature is reproduced today in terms of the concept of a continental divide

between the US and Latin America. Development has replaced the civilizing mission in the

rhetoric of the powerful, yet so-called “developing” countries are still seen as lagging behind the

industrial, scientific North. Today, though expressed in terms of “development” by the IMF,

World Bank, and other proponents of the Washington Consensus, Latin America is viewed as a

convenient home to extensive natural resources and cheap labour. Here, the rhetoric of

development has replaced the rhetoric of civilization in the logic of coloniality.

Mignolo points out that the privileging of modernity automatically requires the

marginalization of other perspectives, as embodied by language and knowledge systems. He

demonstrates how Bartolomé de Las Casas’s four types of “barbarians” made a profound

contribution to how colonized peoples were regarded in the West, delegitimizing indigenous,

and later, African languages and religious practices. The first group were those who were

considered irrational; the second, those without “literal locution”, that is, those who did not use a

language based on Latin; the third, those without a judicial system or system of governance; the

fourth, those who were rational and had coherent legal systems, but were not Christians. Las

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Casas later named a fifth group – those “barbarians” who were enemies of Christianity. To be

an enemy of Christianity, one simply had to resist being converted to it. According to Las Casas,

the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas belonged to the second and fourth categories, since

they were rational and had sophisticated systems of governance, yet lacked both Christianity

and literal locution.

Mignolo outlines how Europeans had conceived of the world as being naturally divided

into three parts – Europe, Asia, and Africa – each of which had inherent geo-political

characteristics, Europe itself being the Christian West. America was inserted into this

understanding as the fourth continent. However, America, a “New World”, was viewed as

distinct from the other three continents in that it had begun to exist much later. Therefore,

America was seen to be behind the rest of the world, needing to catch up with a universal

historical model. Of course, the model was in reality that of European history and modernity.

Hence, the concept of America was understood in terms of Europe’s Christian worldview.

Mignolo claims that the idea of America was inextricably linked to the idea of Europe,

expressed in terms of Occidentalism. Occidentalism had two central features. It defined the

geo-historical space of the West’s culture and more importantly, privileged Western

perspectives. It is the Western gaze that defines the rest of the world. Without the West’s own

conception of itself, Orientalism – the West’s conception of Asia – could not have emerged. The

West began to be seen as the reference point for all other cultures once the Americas began to

exist in the minds of Europeans. America, as the point of origin for Western expansion, was

seen as part of the West, yet peripheral to it. The difference between the core and the periphery

is not simply cultural. Rather, it is a colonial difference:

[...] the links between industrial, developed, and imperial countries, on the one hand, and could-be-industrial, under-developed, and emerging countries, on the other, are the colonial difference in the sphere where [...] [the logic of coloniality is] established. The notion of cultural difference overlooks the relation of power while the concept of colonial difference is based, precisely, on imperial/colonial power differentials.

(Mignolo 2005: 37)

It was later that the distinct idea of a “Latin” America took shape, and became

problematic, as the region came to be considered in terms of Occidentalism. Epistemic power,

as political and economic power, is centred upon Europe, the US, and Japan. Mignolo notes

that access to knowledge is likewise unevenly spread, defining it as the geo-politics of

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epistemology. It was South American and Caribbean intellectuals who, in the 1950s, articulated

the notion that America was invented, rather than discovered, and questioned the meaning of

‘Latinidad’, which will be discussed in detail below. The invention thesis acknowledges that

America’s place on the West’s margins was determined by power differentials in Europe,

something that became especially pertinent when considering how Latin America came to be on

the margins of the West’s margins. Furthermore, the idea of a cohesive, homogeneous “Latin”

America is rooted in the emergence of a Creole elite, who, after gaining independence simply

reproduced the logic of coloniality so that they ‘became, in South America and the Caribbean,

the master while remaining the slave with respect to Western Europe and the US’ (Mignolo

2005: 47). Mignolo indicates that the strength of the system of coloniality lay in its ability to

establish supposedly “natural” epistemic principles which served to legitimize power differentials.

Mignolo argues that the idea of history as linear, with a natural progression towards modernity,

must be challenged. Instead, history must be conceived of in terms of historico-structural

heterogeneity which takes into account both modernity and coloniality, that is, the interaction of

historical processes.

While European perspectives allow for a linear, universal history in which Europe was

always ahead of its colonies, from the perspective of the colonized history is a set of

simultaneous occurrences in time, governed and linked by power differentials. For Mignolo, this

distinction is crucial in that the European perspective of discovery and modernity views an event

such as the French Revolution as another step in the linear progression of history. Such a view

is inherently Eurocentric, whereas history from the perspective of the colonized reveals the

heterogeneous historico-structural links between the metropolis and colonies that mean the

metropolitan revolution cannot be extricated from the existence of empire, through which a

domestic elite accumulated great wealth. Similarly, the independence movements in the

colonies are inextricably linked to processes of social, economic, and political change in the

metropolis. Moreover, he argues that relations between European countries had a profound

effect upon the construction of “Latin” America. The British incorporated the “Black Legend” of

Spanish corruption into their political and economic rhetoric as a tool with which to gain control

of the Atlantic economy during the seventeenth century, thereby establishing the “imperial

difference” which would eventually serve to differentiate the two Americas.

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The notion of an America that was “Latin” was linked to the French concept of Latinitée,

an ideological construct which located the nascent national identities of Spain and Portugal’s

former colonies within a reconfigured world order, albeit one which remained bound by imperial

concerns. In the context of imperial rivalries, France needed to justify its civilizing mission.

Latinitée (or Latinidad) was merely part of France’s attempt to take the lead amongst the Latin

countries of Europe that were involved in the Americas (that is, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and of

course France itself). Creole elites espoused the concept while fashioning their own ideas of

national identity, and so “Latin” America is the result of a Creole political project rather than a

subcontinent. Latinidad served to establish a new continental unit in the global imaginary, and

privileged the European population over the indigenous and black populations. Mignolo posits

that the Creole population ‘felt the colonial wound and took over the conflict of the difference,

the colonial difference, racial, political, social, and economic’ (Mignolo 2005: 62). The Creole

population were bound by what Mignolo refers to as double-consciousness: they were not who

they were supposed to be (Europeans). The black and indigenous populations, meanwhile,

were scarcely considered human so resided outside such concerns. Nevertheless, ‘for the

imperial imaginary, “Latin” Americans are second-class Europeans while Latinos/as in the US

are second-class Americans’ (Mignolo 2005: 64). Effectively, the construction of “Latin” America

arose from post-independence internal colonialism, whereby French and British concepts of

republicanism and liberalism took over from Spanish theology. Rather than offering a critique of

colonialism, and building a decolonial society, Creole elites simply emulated European political,

economic, and intellectual traditions. In other words, the post-independence elites attempted to

become “modern”, while they reproduced the logic of coloniality. Similarly, Steve J. Stern (1992)

and Florencia E. Mallon (1992) have discussed the problematic nature of Creole nation-building

in their examination of the legacy of the the Conquest and its quincentenary. Stern notes that

the Conquest is interpreted differently by different groups:

[..] for Amerindians, the ruinous switch from independent to colonised history; for Iberians, the launching of a formative historical chapter of imperial fame and controversy; for Latin Americans and the Latino diaspora, the painful birth of distinctive cultures out of power-laden encounters among Iberian Europeans, indigenous Americans, Africans, and the diverse offspring who both maintained and blurred the main racial categories.

(Stern 1992: 1)

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Stern (1992: 4-5) goes on to note that for many Latin Americans, the quincentenary of

the Conquest invited condemnation, while for others, the same condemnation merely

reproduced Anglo-driven notions of the ‘Black Legend’ and caricatured Spanish imperialism as

uniquely vicious. Moreover, the quincentenary was regarded as a cause for celebration by those

who regarded the Spanish as a civilizing influence that brough modernity to Latin America. For

Stern, the historiography of the Conquest and its aftermath allowed for a more subtle

understanding of the ‘Black Legend’ and colonial instutitutions. Mallon, meanwhile, notes that

racial or ethnic categories such as ‘Indian’ were political construcutions that were grounded in

social class, and encouraged a binary interpretatiom of Latin American history.

Mignolo holds that the reproduction of the logic of coloniality continued until the 1990s,

when Latin America’s social movements began attempting to bring indigenous and black

worldviews into the political mainstream. Mignolo states here that such social movements are

‘not impregnated with the republican, liberal, and socialist traditions [of Europe]’ (Mignolo 2005:

67). I would question this statement, and feel it presumes the region’s social movements are

something of a homogeneous mass, rather than a disparate collection of organizations, each

with its own outlook and priorities. In Bolivia, for example, many of the social movements mix

indigenous Andean traditions with European ones. Morales and the MAS are a case in point.

Usually regarded as a loose confederation of social movements rather than a political party in

the traditional sense of the word, MAS’s connections to the trade unions, and of course its name,

put paid to any suggestion that it is a complete departure from a European framework.

Morales’s own union background limits the party’s ability to decouple from European

conceptions of left and right. There are social movements in Bolivia without links to the MAS

that are less union-oriented, but almost all interact to some degree with European concepts of

class, gender, or race, and so Mignolo’s claim that the social movements are somehow all

outside the republican, liberal, or socialist frameworks is questionable.

Mignolo argues that the US escaped the negative connotations associated with being

American, if not the logic of coloniality itself, since its national identity was constructed ‘precisely

to establish the American difference with Europe’ (Mignolo 2005: 68). Latin America’s Creoles,

however, did not do the same, and so for Mignolo, contemporary attempts by indigenous, black,

and mestizo populations to establish their own identities is something Creole elites should have

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done in the nineteenth century. The increasing power of the US over Latin America throughout

the twentieth century constituted simply the transference of the colonial matrix of power, rather

than its erasure, and was reinforced by the fact that Latinity conflated language with national

identity. By the latter half of the nineteenth century, the waning of the Spanish and Portuguese

empires alongside the strengthening of the French, British and German empires meant that

power, progress, and therefore civilization resided in languages other than Spanish and

Portuguese. Spanish and Portuguese were ‘degraded from imperial hegemonic languages to

subaltern imperial languages and superseded by French, German, and English’ (Mignolo 2005:

71), recalling how Las Casas’s notion of literal locution served to delegitimize indigenous

languages.

Mignolo at times appears to position the ‘West’ and ‘Latin America’ as fundamentally

distinct units, and to argue that European culture was completely imposed upon indigenous

culture. Nevertheless, he does, as pointed out earlier in this chapter, stress that the idea of Latin

America goes hand-in-hand with the idea of Europe or the idea of the US. That is, he argues

that the ideas of Latin America, Europe and the US are interdependent – one cannot exist

without the others. He argues that Europe’s sense of itself as being at the vanguard of

modernity is dependent on the existence of Latin America. Far from being outside modernity,

Latin America was the force behind it. In this way, Mignolo avoids any suggestion that Latin

America was somehow outside modernity. Moreover, he avoids any suggestion that the idea of

Latin America is simply a European social construct in his discussion of Latinitée, and how

nineteenth-century Creole elites embraced the concept in their eagerness to distinguish the

region from the Anglocentric US. Of course, the Creole tendency to imitate European traditions

limits the extent to which their political project can be considered a truly local construct.

The Idea of Latin America elaborates upon Mignolo’s extensive theoretical work on

global coloniality and the geopolitics of knowledge, which started with The Darker Side of the

Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality and Colonization in 1995. Here, Mignolo adds to his existing

body of work by accounting for the emergence of alternative discourses and the increased

contestation of hegemonic worldviews. Mignolo’s work both complements and contests the work

of other writers involved in postcolonial/decolonial and subaltern studies, such as Enrique

Dussel, Frantz Fanon, and Edward Said. Though Mignolo has praised Dussel’s calls for

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decolonization (or liberation) of thoughts, he has argued that the latter’s approach proposes ‘a

methodological alternative that remains within the monotopic perspective he attempted to

debunk’ (Mignolo 1995: 11). He has also drawn a distinction between ‘postcolonial’ and

‘decolonial’ theory, arguing that postcolonial theorists such as Said belong to a school of

thought that, while transformative, remains internal to the (European) academy. Situating

himself amongst decolonialist thinkers such as Fanon, Anibal Quijano, and José Mariátegui, he

argues that postcolonial theory neglects ‘the radical political and epistemological shifts’ offered

by decolonial theory (Mignolo 2007: 452).

Imperial Eyes

Some of the earliest accounts of Latin America read by Britons were what would now be

termed ‘travel writing’. These accounts often took the form of diary entries written by self-

proclaimed ‘explorers’ or ‘adventurers’, as they travelled around the region observing the

landscape, natural resources, people, animals, food, and costs. Precursors to modern tourist

guidebooks, these volumes provided information on how to get there, where to go, how much

everything costs, and cultural differences. Additionally, these accounts, as useful to the investor

as the traveller, often listed industries and described their profitability, or lack thereof. Since

travel writers formed most Britons’ earliest impressions of the region and, moreover, were

considered neutral observers providing facts about distant countries, they can be viewed as

precursors to today’s journalists, many of whom still claim to be neutral observers. This is not to

say that travel writing and journalism are the same thing, of course. The travel writers did not file

daily reports on Latin American current affairs or politics, for example. Nevertheless, travel

writers share common traits with today’s journalists insofar as they were understood to provide

accurate, first-hand information about a distant region to their readers. While the subject matter

may differ from that of modern journalism, travel writing was understood to be grounded in fact

and therefore representative of the ‘real’ Latin America. Travel writers therefore played a crucial

role in inventing Latin America for Britain, and an examination of their work illuminates the ways

in which Britain’s idea of Latin America manifested itself, thus complementing Mignolo’s more

abstract account. Hence, Mary Louise Pratt’s influential work Imperial Eyes, which examines the

effect European travel writing has had on both metropolitan and peripheral societies, is

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particularly relevant to this research. She explores the ways in which travel writing has

produced the periphery for metropolitan readers; the ways in which such productions of the

periphery have in turn reflected back upon metropolitan society, which then defines itself in

opposition to the periphery; and the resultant legitimization of economic expansion by European

powers. While I do not purport to make full use of, nor explain, the entirety of Pratt’s ideas here,

I will draw upon a number of her key concepts throughout this section.

Pratt borrows from ethnography the term “transculturation”, which describes the ways in

which a subjugated society absorbs, mirrors, and transforms the cultural materials diffused from

metropolitan society. The concept explores how, rather than simply replicating these materials,

dominated societies combine them with and adapt them to their own cultural realities. Pratt

notes that European modes of representation of ‘the rest of the world’ are subject to this

process of transculturation, and the dominated society’s self-image is distorted, but not

completely so. She labels the means by which dominated societies utilize modes of self-

expression in response to metropolitan modes of representation “autoethnography”. Pratt adds

to the concept by arguing that transculturation is bidirectional, and that the metropolis is

changed by the periphery. She posits that while the metropolis readily accepts that it shapes the

periphery, ‘it habitually blinds itself to the ways in which the periphery determines the

metropolis- beginning perhaps, with the latter’s obsessive need to present and re-present its

peripheries and its others continually to itself’ (Pratt 1992: 6). To a certain extent Pratt’s view of

transculturation as a bidirectional phenomenon corresponds with Mignolo’s position that a

deconstruction of the idea of Latin America reveals the basis for the West’s perception of itself

as the pinnacle of civilization. Furthermore, her concept of autoethnography captures much of

Mignolo’s discussion of the epistemic power differentials that led to the production of national

identities subordinated to Western notions of progress and civility, though it must be said while

both Pratt and Mignolo focus upon the dominance of the colonizers over the colonized, Pratt

allows for slightly more agency in the latter’s production of its self-image. Pratt’s notion of the

‘contact zone’ is central to transculturation. The contact zone is the space in which the

metropolis and periphery interact, their encounters governed by colonial power structures.

Travellers wrote from the contact zone, and were thus central to the process of transculturation,

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in the same way that modern foreign correspondents and international news agencies operate

within the contact zone today.

Pratt’s term “anti-conquest” denotes the ‘strategies of representation whereby European

bourgeois subjects seek to secure their innocence in the same moment as they assert

European hegemony’ (Pratt 1992: 7). Rather than deploying the ‘older imperial rhetorics of

conquest associated with the absolutist era’ (Pratt 1992: 7), travellers often encouraged more

subtle manifestations of European power, such as international trade and finance. Pratt explains

that the backdrop for these narratives of anti-conquest includes ‘the emergency [sic] of natural

history as a structure of knowledge, and the momentum toward interior, as opposed to maritime,

exploration’ (Pratt 1992: 9) and a concurrent shift toward European capitalist expansion. The

emergence in Europe of natural science as the structure of knowledge, combined with a thirst

for land and resources meant that early travel writing, by ‘objectively’ cataloguing and

systematizing the people, flora and fauna, landscape, and natural resources of the periphery,

imposed (largely Northern) European forms of knowledge upon dominated societies, and was

thus embedded with imperial concerns and ideologies.

Alexander von Humboldt’s work was an important stylistic milestone in European

representations of Latin America in that he sought to combine the aesthetic with the scientific,

and thus avoid ‘on the one hand, a trivializing preoccupation with what he called “the merely

personal,” and, on the other, an accumulation of scientific detail that was spiritually and

esthetically deadening’ (Pratt 1992: 121). More importantly, he reinvented the continent for

Europeans as Nature: an uncharted region ripe for development. In this way, Humboldt’s work

legitimized European ambitions of capitalist expansion, even while he acted as a disinterested

and passive observer. Pratt argues that Humboldt’s work, particularly his later, more personal

narrative, is a prime example of transculturation at work: ‘Humboldt transculturated to Europe

knowledges produced by Americans in the process of defining themselves as separate from

Europe’ (Pratt 1992: 136). In what she refers to as “Creole self-fashioning”, local elites with

nation-building ambitions would reimport that supposedly European knowledge, and refashion it

to produce their own autoethnographic expressions of identity and independence to safeguard

the legitimacy of Creole power.

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Pratt contrasts Humboldt’s writings with those of the “capitalist vanguard”, a wave of

mainly British explorers who acted as ‘advance scouts for European capital […] sent to the “new

continent” in search of exploitable resources, contacts, and contracts with local elites,

information on potential ventures, labor conditions, transport, market potentials, and so forth’

(Pratt 1992: 146). Often critical of the local Creole elites, particularly in terms of lack of

investment in extractive industries and the failure to ‘civilize’ the indigenous populations, the

capitalist vanguard could hide behind anti-conquest discourse whilst advocating British

economic intervention and civilizing missions. The capitalist vanguard differed from the

naturalists in that they were not self-styled ‘discoverers of a primal word’, but collectors of

samples of raw materials (Pratt 1992: 148). Where Humboldt prized the aesthetic value of

nature, for the capitalist vanguard it was actively troubling: ‘a sign of the failure of human

enterprise […] the touchstone of a negative esthetic that legitimated European interventionism’

(Pratt 1992: 149).

Pratt’s concepts of anti-conquest rhetoric and the capitalist vanguard, and her

recognition of the imposition of European forms of knowledge upon the periphery, echo

Mignolo’s notion of the logic of coloniality, colonial difference, and the colonial wound, insofar as

each author describes the ways in which the power differentials and assumptions of

metropolitan superiority that are found within explicitly imperialist contact zones are reproduced,

but disguised, within ostensibly non-imperialist contact zones.

Lost Worlds

While travel writing is a useful medium through which one can examine how Britain’s

idea of Latin America manifested itself, and the travel writer as a neutral observer mirrors the

ideal of the modern western journalist, it is also necessary to consider how the pattern of

representations of Latin America established above has bled into other genres. Kevin Foster’s

Lost Worlds: Latin America and the Imagining of Empire (2009), provides a useful overview of

western representations of Latin America across a variety of genres including fiction, poetry,

and journalism. Foster examines representations of Latin America in the English-speaking West

from the period immediately before independence to the end of the twentieth century. He

suggests that, for Anglophone writers and cultural commentators, Latin America was, and

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remains, a blank canvas onto which their own cultural anxieties could be projected. Thus

Anglophone representations of Latin America are not concerned with the region per se. Instead,

it is a space which plays ‘a key role in addressing, mediating or resolving different crises of

national identity’ (Foster 2009: xiii). In this way both the writers’ own countries and Latin

America become ‘lost worlds’: the former is lost to a succession of threats to their existence,

real or imagined, while the latter is subordinated to and disappears under the worries of the

West.

Foster holds that, particularly in the early stages of Anglo contact with Latin America, so

little was known about the region that writers could do with it as they pleased: ‘Signifying

nothing, Latin America could be made to mean just about anything’ (Foster 2009: 18). While

Britain had significant commercial interests in the region, its lack of formal empire in Latin

America meant that Britain did not have to engage with the local population in any meaningful

sense. Hence, stereotypes and perceptions of Latin America that were encouraged by those

early representations, as well as the image of Britain those representations reflected, have for

the most part persisted. It is the fact that such stereotypes and perceptions say as much about

Britain as they do Latin America that explains such persistence, since they still provide a

purpose insofar as they express Britain’s political unconscious (Foster 2009: 11). His notion of

two lost worlds can be seen as something of an extension of Pratt’s perception of

transculturation as a bidirectional phenomenon, and the idea that the metropolis generally

ignores the ways in which the periphery influences it. Not only do Europeans fail to

acknowledge that their understanding of the periphery influences their understanding of

themselves, they fail to acknowledge that representations of the periphery constitute

representations of the self as much as representations of the other.

Much of Foster’s commentary coincides with Mignolo’s argument that the idea of Latin

America is grounded in the colonial matrix of power, particularly insofar as he discusses how

Britain’s relative ignorance about Latin America feeds into well-established stereotypes and how

sixteenth-century Europeans sought to impose upon the ‘New World’ European models and

conceptions of society, thereby establishing a pattern of ‘seemingly perennial ignorance about

the continent’ (Foster 2009: 7).

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Foster initially demonstrates that Latin America provided a space within which British

writers could, unfettered by the constraints of formal empire, ‘question the legitimacy of the

nation’s imperial expansion, its capacity to sustain such an enterprise and examine how the

running of the empire might provide a model for the management of political and social unrest at

home’ (Foster 2009: xvi). Here, Foster turns to the poetry of Robert Southey, which depicts

Latin American peoples such as the Aztecs and Guaraní as uncivilized barbarians, thus

operating within the logic of coloniality. Foster’s reading of Southey has much in common with

Pratt’s notion of anti-conquest discourse, through which writers sought to justify Britain’s

growing economic and political power whilst professing to abhor the violence associated with

formal imperialism.

Later, Foster looks at British adventure fiction of the nineteenth century, discussing

novels such as Anthony Hope’s A Man of Mark (1885), Winston Churchill’s Savrola (1900),

Charles Kingsley’s Westward Ho! (1855), Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (1912), and

Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo (1904). Such novels used Latin America as a space within which

domestic fears surrounding identity, legitimacy of leadership, and colonial guilt could be

explored. Latin America was both chaotic and liberating, and readers could enjoy tales in which

the protagonists were freed from moral and legal restraints. Foster states adventure fiction

meant that:

[…] for the greater portion of the British public, by the late nineteenth century, Latin America had all but ceased to exist as a substantive geographical entity- if had ever “existed” for them in the first place… Latin America had come to signify little more than moral regression, endemic political instability and the promise of adventure and escape

(Foster 2009: 38)

The extensive use of fictional South American republics in adventure fiction highlights a pattern

of a lack of specificity about the latter region that pervades to this day. As a jumble of

stereotypes, Latin America is a culturally homogenous landmass that is at once exotic yet

familiar. It does not really matter exactly where the story is set, because it is all Latin America.

Moreover, as Foster notes, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, adventure

novels enjoyed special status within imaginative fiction, and were viewed as ‘reliable reporting’

(Foster 2009: 73 and 208). Therefore, the genre not only endorsed British imperialism, albeit

often unintentionally, but also reinforced negative stereotypes of Latin America.

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Foster’s examination of adventure fiction allows for more internal dissent within Britain

than Pratt and Mignolo allow. Nevertheless, the construction of Latin America itself remains

more or less the same, and it was largely regarded as a wild, yet curiously homogenous place.

For most British writers, the natural ability of Britain as an imperial power was not in question,

even if the morality of imperialism was. In many ways, the writers employed anti-conquest

rhetoric in that they deplored the violence of imperialism, yet had few objections to British

exploration in the name of commercial expansion. More importantly, by using Latin America as

a proxy to discuss British concerns, writers imposed upon the region European forms of

knowledge arising from the perspective of modernity.

Foster goes on to discuss British fears that the nation’s identity was fundamentally at

risk, and the ways in which British writers, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the

1940s, used Latin America to explore such fears. These fears essentially revolved around the

disappearance of traditional ways of life, trades, places, and people as a result of industrial

progress and imperial gains. A small, yet influential, number of writers sought evidence that

‘authentic’ Britain, or rather England, still existed. The rural was privileged as the site of not only

the nation’s true character, but of life itself. Latin America became a common setting for

explorations of this identity crisis: ‘British writers persistently present Latin America as a place of

death- a place where the particular qualities of life in Britain might be examined’ (Foster 2009:

84).

Foster writes that suggestions that Latin America could teach Britain anything were met

by contempt and disbelief. Writers including George Orwell, Evelyn Waugh, and Christopher

Isherwood denied Latin America was of any historical importance – it was an obscure, empty

and distant place where nothing happened. Once more, Latin America would become whatever

Britons wanted it to be, and in the inter-war years Latin America became a place where national

decline could be discussed through black comedy. Here Foster’s analysis demonstrates that the

idea of Latin America remained that of an inherently inferior place. However, the vision of

modernity as a benign natural progression was increasingly under question, though for most

writers this did not mean Britain should become like Latin America. Indeed, it was the very

suggestion that was so alarming since, despite the failings of modern Britain, becoming like

Latin America is clearly a backward step too far. Once more, Latin America itself is subordinated

40

to European conceptions of civility and progress, imperial concerns, and the logic of coloniality,

and the condescension inherent in both has not really dissipated.

Since the 1960s novelists, journalists and cultural commentators have employed Latin

America, and its social and political volatility, as both a point of comparison for Britain’s relative

stability and a warning of what awaits it should it continue its decline. The profound cultural and

social changes of the 1960s discomfited conservatives, who have argued that the secular west

is a place of ‘misery, decadence and ignorance’ (Foster 2009: 173).2 Graham Greene and

Richard Llewellyn’s readers could take refuge from the uncertainties of modern life in the

dependably adventurous world of Latin America. In the 1970s, Britain’s continuing economic

stagnation and military weakening were a cause for concern. While in earlier years, the Latin

American stereotypes of anarchy, decay and violence had served as a counterpoint to Britain’s

superiority, in the 1970s the region, especially Chile, began to seem like a vision of Britain’s

future. It is here we see how the customary representations of Latin America found in travel

writing, fiction, and poetry had taken hold in twentieth century journalism. Against the backdrop

of Harold Wilson’s Labour government, conservative journalists suggested that Britain was in

danger of emulating Chile’s transformation from a relatively wealthy nation to one in the grip of a

military dictatorship, as Labour’s reforms were similar to those of Salvador Allende, who of

course was overthrown by the military in 1973. The left celebrated Allende’s Chile as a model,

while for the right it was something to be feared. With the rise of Margaret Thatcher in the

1980s, the mainstream reading of Chile’s relevance to Britain once more changed. Thatcher

greatly admired the pro-market monetarist reforms taking place in Pinochet’s Chile, and so

throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Chile provided Britons with a space within which to debate its

own economic future. Insofar as Chile acted as a space within which Britain’s economic

fortunes could be contemplated, it was reduced to a place of clear-cut political polarization,

rather than a state with multifaceted social and class divisions and compromises. This final part

of Foster’s analysis constitutes a major departure from Mignolo’s vision of unchanging imperial

arrogance insofar as it indicates that Britain’s view of Latin America as a rather backward place

with little to teach Britain began to unravel somewhat. Nevertheless, the notion that the region

was chaotic and essentially unstable is rarely far from the surface, and discussion of Latin

2 Here Foster cites Arthur Harwick and Peter Hitchens.

41

America continues to rest upon the assumption of the universality of European conceptions of

politics, economics, and epistemology.

Early travel writing

The following discussion of four pieces of British travel writing will demonstrate how,

during the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, travel writers created Bolivia for British

readers, exhibiting many of the features of the European gaze highlighted by Mignolo and Pratt

in particular. Foster’s analysis is less relevant to these pieces of travel writing than it is to the

newspaper articles that are discussed in subsequent chapters. These books have been

selected since – unlike the material discussed by Pratt and Foster – they concern Bolivia

specifically and as such are illustrative of the historical representations of that country rather

than Latin America more generally.3 Edmond Temple’s book, Travels in Various Parts of Peru,

Including a Year’s Residence in Potosi (1830), is a two-volume account of his impressions of a

journey from Britain to Peru, via Buenos Aires, in August 1825. Temple’s trip was part of his role

within the newly created Potosi, La Paz, and Peruvian Mining Association, which aimed to

develop ‘the far famed mines of Potosi and sundry others in Peru’ (Temple 1830: Vol. 1 1). The

author’s delight in his new job is in no doubt:

Never did secretary [sic] of the richest treasury in Europe receive his appointment with greater certainty of acquiring fortune than I did, when named chief of the office for registering the treasures to be drawn from the mines of America.

(Temple 1830: Vol. 1 2)

For Temple, America is primarily a space where he can make his fortune, or – as Mignolo

indicated – a source of raw materials to be exploited by Europe. Temple, displaying many of the

attitudes of Pratt’s capitalist vanguard, takes it for granted that it is Europeans who will exploit

the mines of America, and there is no suggestion that the fortune could, never mind should, be

made by anybody else.

Temple (1830: Vol. 1 v), in his opening preface, writes that his book is a record of ‘[…]

any thing and every thing that I either saw, heard, or thought, which appeared to me deserving

of insertion in a journal […]’. In the same way that modern foreign correspondents are expected

3 Of course, it should be pointed out that when the older books were written, what is now Bolivia was part of Peru.

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to provide audiences with eye-witness accounts, Temple promises his reader his book will do

the same. Moreover, his qualification ‘deserving of insertion in a journal’, not only recalls the

way modern journalists report what they deem of importance or interest to audiences, but points

to a European perspective as to what is important or interesting.

Temple (1830: Vol. 1 234-35), comparing Britain favourably to South America, asserts

the former’s superiority is ‘because the history of the world affords no example of a country

where property has so much weight, affords so much enjoyment, and is so well secured by just

and equal laws […]’. His obvious approval of individual property rights, and tacit assumption of

the reader’s approval, shows that his account is bound by Western conceptions of society and

rights. The logic of coloniality is at work through the privileging of the British worldview.

Nevertheless, the region has its positives – in a rather barbed dig at Spain, Temple notes that

those wishing to mix with high society will ‘find nothing very superior’ in Spain to what is on offer

in South America (1830: Vol. 1 236). He advocates the establishment of an initially small British

diaspora in South America, where, though ‘“the enjoyments of life”’ may not be immediately

available, ‘“…industry with small means” cannot fail to prosper…’, thanks to British diplomacy,

which has ‘produced in South America an uninterrupted predilection in [the nation’s] favour’

(Temple 1830: Vol. 1 237). Here, Temple explicitly celebrates Latin America as a space ripe for

development, where the British may gradually expand their commercial and cultural influence. A

member of Pratt’s capitalist vanguard, Temple employs anti-conquest rhetoric to champion

Britain’s diplomacy over Spain’s creaking formal imperialism, yet asserts Britain’s right to

expand its informal empire. Moreover, this assertion of colonial difference recalls Mignolo’s

account of the European rivalries which helped drive the construction of Latin America in the

Western imaginary.

The logic of coloniality is most amply demonstrated by Temple’s visit to Potosí, the

Bolivian mining town which will be discussed further in chapter four. Potosí is of interest to

Europeans because it is of use to them, and naturally it is Europeans who will best make use of

Potosí. Potosí is a microcosm of the idea of Latin America: it is ‘celebrated’ precisely because it

is a source of wealth-generating raw material, yet its potential will only be fulfilled once the city

and its related industry catches up with the more modern Europe. Temple’s approach to the city

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of Potosí provides him with his first view of the mountain which embodies his attraction to post-

independence Latin America, a mountain from which there is (literally) money to be made:

…it was that mountain, incapable of producing even a blade of grass, which yet had attractions sufficient to cause a city to be built at its base, at one time containing a hundred thousand inhabitants; - it was that mountain, whose hidden treasures have withstood the laborious plunder of two hundred and fifty year, and still remain unexhausted. Having said thus much of the new and striking object before me, I need scarcely add that it was the celebrated mountain of Potosi.

(Temple 1830: Vol. 1 283-84)

As a member of the capitalist vanguard, Temple is keen to identify opportunities for investment,

providing readers with a detailed description of the working of the Potosí mines and processing

procedures, before speculating upon the future profitability of the operation, making it clear that,

in order to maximize profit, foreign investment will be required:

It has been supposed that a greater quantity of silver can be extracted from the ores by amalgamation than what is obtained by the rude method of the natives. This is doubtful, but it is quite certain that a greater profit may be obtained by a general improvement in the whole system.

(Temple 1830: Vol. 1 310)

As Pratt’s capitalist vanguard found nature to be problematic, Temple’s writing often

conveys a sense of isolation, as in this account of his desperation to leave the Bolivian

settlement of Zoropalca:

…this desolate place… the bleak dell in which I was surrounded by still bleaker mountains, raising their rugged heads to the clouds and frowning in sullen majesty upon the few living beings who vegetated beneath, but who, to me at least, were human only from their shape.

(Temple 1830: Vol. 1 279-280)

His distaste for the landscape suggests a need for development, presumably according to the

logic of coloniality and its assumption of the inexorable progression toward modernity.

He has a sympathetic, but rather patronising view of Peruvian peasants:

They are extremely humble, and although they have given proofs of desperate courage and ferocity when roused to vengeance, they are nevertheless of a timid disposition, and as peaceably inclined as they are represented to have been, when Pizarro, their murderous conqueror, invaded them three hundred years ago.

(Temple 1830: Vol. 1 269)

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Temple’s descriptions of local people are just that: descriptions. While he clearly would have

interacted with many people along his journey – not least his local guides – his writing style

gives the impression of little conversation. He describes people as he describes animals, with

descriptions of their appearance and temperament, as in the above passage regarding ‘humble’

people, immediately followed by a description of the llama’s appearance and temperament

(Temple 1830: 269-73). People are simply part of the landscape, almost incidental to the

Briton’s surveying of the region. It is only the members of high society that are given individual

personalities, amply demonstrated by a lengthy passage in naming Temple’s acquaintances

amongst Chuquisaca’s elite, followed by a discussion of his interview with President Antonio

Sucre (Temple 1830: Vol. 1 397- 404).4 Once more, Temple employs the logic of coloniality and

anti-conquest rhetoric in implying that the conquest, though unpleasant, was inevitable given

the indigenous people’s fundamental nature.

Temple’s mere passing interest in coca is noteworthy given the cultural battleground to

which the leaf would later become central. Whilst describing the clothing of an indigenous

person in a painting, Temple mentions the man’s coca-pouch. A footnote explains that ‘Coca is

an aromatic and bitter leaf which the Peruvian Indians chew, and are even more fond of than

the most inveterate tobacco chewer of his quid’ (Temple 1830: Vol. 1 293). There is no further

reference to coca, and it is clearly of little interest to Temple, and no doubt he feels it would be

of little interest to his readers. Thirty years on when, as will be discussed later, the leaf took on a

new meaning for Europeans, he may have thought otherwise.

In A Traveller of the Sixties, Douglas Timins presents extracts from the diaries kept by

Frederick James Stevenson during a two-year trip around South America. Though the book was

published in 1929, the diaries date from 1867 to 1869. Stevenson’s trip is for pleasure, not

profit; but while he seems to be travelling for sheer adventure rather than any defined purpose,

he keeps a careful record of altitude, the boiling point of water at various altitudes, and

distances. Though Stevenson cannot be considered part of the capitalist vanguard, his diary is

nevertheless from the perspective of modernity.

In contrast to Temple, Stevenson’s diaries do not show a concern with making money,

though he is baffled by the reluctance of a woman to sell him food for his mules:

4 The city of Chuquisaca is now known as Sucre, in the department of Chuquisaca.

45

…near an Indian finca in which cacho was growing, I dismounted and unpacked, and asked the old Aymara woman of the house to sell me some cacho for my mules. Though the stuff was growing under our noses the mendacious old girl declared without hesitation ‘No hay’ (There is none). I told her I would pay her well for it and offered her the money in advance, but still she persisted that there was none.

(Timins 1929: 235)

Stevenson sends for the patrón, who also tells him there is no cacho, but the writer has his

porter cut the plant anyway, telling the man that he will pay a fair price. The author’s behaviour

reveals a European perspective that everything can be bought, and that it is he who has the

right to determine the terms of the transaction. This is not to say that Stevenson consciously

believes he should be able to buy something simply because he is a foreigner; rather that the

episode highlights a set of cultural assumptions which make it impossible for Stevenson to

comprehend that someone may not wish to sell, taking for granted the universality of his own

society’s norms. While he later pays the man more than he asks for, the underlying principle

that it is Europeans who set the terms of business is clear, denying locals any agency:

When all was ready I asked the Indian how much he wanted for his cacho and firewood, and in evident fear and abject humility, he suggested a ridiculously low sum, and said he wanted nothing for the oranges. I paid the poor fellow just twice as much as he had asked, and left him evidently puzzled and astonished that a white man should so far forget himself as to treat an Indian fairly, and not cheat and abuse him and take advantage of his weakness.

(Timins 1929: 236)

Stevenson’s version of Bolivia is far more densely populated, and he craves the

isolation that Temple lamented. His descriptions of the landscape are shorter, and fewer.

Stevenson’s concern with his physical environment focuses upon the aesthetic: the cleanliness

and quality of his accommodation, the attractiveness of the surroundings, and the living

conditions of the local people, all of which he clearly finds abhorrent:

My heart sank when I saw in what sort of place we would have to pass the night. The huts of the Aymaras were huddled together indiscriminately in an utterly barren waste of land and gravel from which every blade of vegetation had long since been cleared off by the llamas and alpacas.

(Timins 1929: 209)

and

I was left the sole occupier of an apartment enclosed by four windowless walls, with a rotting straw-thatched roof, the doorless doorway open to the cold wind,

46

the floor thickly covered with dry, choking dust and dirt that seemed to have accumulated for years, an adobe bench or platform at one end, on which I was to sleep, but no pretence of furniture of any kind whatever.

(Timins 1929: 215)

He does, however, concede that ‘traveller in out-of-the-way regions like this must not be over

dainty’ (Timins 1929: 211). Although, as noted above, Stevenson is not part of the capitalist

vanguard, he shares their distaste for the disorder of the local environment.

Stevenson begins to hanker after some solitude. He is exasperated by what he refers to

as ‘impertinent curiosity’ (Timins 1929: 255), and ‘[…] the troublesome inquisitiveness to which I

have been accustomed […]’ (Timins 1929: 244). The absurdity of the curious traveller being

offended by other people’s curiosity is clearly lost on Stevenson, as he tries to deflect questions

about who he is, and why he is in Bolivia. While the perspective of modernity disdains those

who are not like Europeans, it also derides those who presume to act like Europeans: clearly,

one must reach certain standards before one can begin to have the privileges Europeans take

for granted.

Unlike Temple, Stevenson does make clear his interaction with people of all social

groups. For example, he writes about a young boy he finds alone on the Altiplano. While the

boy’s appearance revolts him, he is clearly sympathetic toward him, and does try to help him:

[…] I found a horribly dirty little Indian boy, with nothing on but a miserable old rag, worn like a poncho, with which the wind was taking great liberties. The poor child was suffering miserably, so I thought best to send Mariano on to fetch people from the huts as soon as possible, while I dismounted and did what I could to shelter him from the wind, and it was not long before Mariano returned with two women, in whose hands I gladly left the poor child.

(Timins 1929: 209)

However, Stevenson’s representations of Latin Americans are not unproblematic. One of the

writer’s arrieros (muleteers), Mariano, with whom he appears to have an amiable relationship, is

drawn as a fairly rounded individual with his own personality, qualities, and flaws. However, the

master-servant dynamic is never far from the surface, as the following excerpt describing

Mariano’s return after Stevenson feared him missing demonstrates:

47

Knowing that the poor fellow must be fairly well used up, I hastened to the hut, and had a pisco cocktail ready for him on his arrival. He was very penitent, and frightened less I should be angry with him for letting the mules get away. But I was too glad at seeing him safely back to give him the blowing-up that he seemed to think himself entitled to.

(Timins 1929: 212-213)

Stevenson does not always let his staff go unpunished, as his ire at a disobedient arriero’s boy

demonstrates:

So, with Estevan’s [sic] consent (after all he was his mozo) I went for my revenca intending to try the effect of the young man of Coripata’s cure for lazy Indians, seeing which Vicente immediately went to tend the fire, at the same time gathering his poncho about him to protect himself from the beating that he evidently expected, without the least show of resistance or attempt to escape.

(Timins 1929: 235)

Stevenson’s superiority as a white foreigner is taken for granted, as in this excerpt

regarding their arrival at a village full of drunken locals celebrating a festival: ‘Mariano told them

to look sharp and find a house for Patron, and not keep him shivering in the cold’ (Timins 1929:

217), and supposedly lower-status indigenous people are frequently expected to move out of

their accommodation to make room for the Scotsman (for example Timins 1929: 215).

Nevertheless, Stevenson does come to rely on his various guides and travelling companions,

and on several occasions Mariano must ‘rescue’ the author from situations involving people who

offend his delicate sensibilities, and in this respect we can regard Mariano as being more

powerful than his master – Stevenson more than once says he is unable to look after himself

and has to wait for Mariano’s arrival.

Stevenson’s attitude toward indigenous people, like Temple’s, is often sympathetic, but

patronising, and demonstrates an underlying belief that the people are harmless, but inferior,

and in need of the civilizing influence and protection of people like the author: ‘The patron and

his Indian visitors whom we had turned out of [their own] hut last night came back this morning,

humbly begging to be allowed to heat a little water at our fire, and as they were no longer very

drunk I made no objections’ (Timins 1929: 219) and ‘[The Corregidor] had all the will and

intention to cheat, not only the poor simple-minded Indian, but also the “Stranger within his

gates”’ (Timins 1929: 222- 23). His attitude operates with the logic of coloniality, that is, it

displays all the assumptions of European superiority, and the inevitability of European authority

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– an authority so embedded in the colonized society that it is accepted by Europeans and Latin

Americans alike.

Edward D. Mathews, Resident Engineer of the ill-fated Madeira-Mamoré Railway

project in Brazil, travelled back to Britain via Bolivia and Peru while the railway project was on

hiatus, keeping diaries that became Up the Amazon and Madeira Rivers, through Bolivia and

Peru. Mathews was certain that the eventual completion of the railway would lead to increased

interest in ‘adventurous’ routes across South America. He writes that his book could be a

valuable instructional volume on the logistics of one such route (Mathews 1879: vi), yet his

opening dedication belies his status as a member of the capitalist vanguard:

…I have dedicated my labours to the indefatigable worker who, for many years past, has devoted his life to the noble enterprise of opening a way to the markets of Europe for the many and varied products of the Republic of Bolivia and the Province of Matto Grosso in the Empire of Brazil.

(Mathews 1879: vii)

Mathew’s reference to ‘noble enterprise’ echoes Mignolo’s reference to discourses that justify

European expansion, regarding modernity a benign accomplishment. Like Temple, Mathews

shows an interest in the industries found along his route. He writes about Don Miguel Cuellas,

the profit he has made from rubber on the Madeira, and the comparative advantages of trade on

the Bolivian side of the river over the Brazilian (Mathews 1879: 87). A tale regarding the recent

murder of the Brazilian Consul to the Beni ends with a summary of the Consul’s plans for his

herd of cattle, and the differences in the price of cattle on various parts of the Madeira (Mathews

1879: 118). An appendix (Mathews 1879: 399-402) summarizes the elevation and crops of

various towns and villages, the value of exports out of Arica, climatic information, and the cost

of his journey. This brings to mind Pratt’s reference to those travel writers who imposed

European forms of knowledge upon local societies as a direct consequence of imperialist

interests, by carefully collecting empirical data on natural resources.

Mathews, visiting Potosí almost 50 years after Temple, has a different perspective on

mining at Cerro Rico:

Whilst the mines were workable without machinery the profits derived from them must have been enormous, but even the seemingly fabulous riches of this hill of silver will not tempt speculators to attempt the impossible, and try to drag powerful pumping engines over the Andes from the Pacific to Potosi.

(Mathews 1879: 323)

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He notes that the decreased output of Bolivian mines is due to the fact that creating new,

deeper shafts is not viable because of a lack of suitable equipment, equipment that will come

once the railways are built. Evidently, money could still be made from Bolivia’s mines, but only

with imported machinery brought over by (presumably European) investors on a (presumably

European-built) railway. It is only Bolivia’s infrastructure and geography that prevents

Europeans from making a profit. No doubt Mathews, given his occupation, would be interested

in the gains to be made from railway construction in the Andes. Mathews’ writing is typical of

Pratt’s capitalist vanguard: providing information as to natural resources, being critical of

existing infrastructure, and viewing the local environment as an obstacle to the accumulation of

wealth.

Mathews appears more interested in coca than Temple and Stevenson, focusing mainly

on the financial potential of the plant and telling the reader that:

The chief agriculture of the district is that of "coca", the "cocales" or plantations of which seem to be the principal wealth of the settlers… A very large trade in the article is carried on at most of the towns of the republic [… it fetches] from eleven to sixteen pesos the "sesta" of twenty-two pounds, say 1s. 7d. to 2s. 4d. per pound.

(Mathews 1879: 202)

Mathews seems to regard coca-chewing as a practical, if rather odd, Quechua and Aymara

custom, noting how it suppresses hunger, and increases the work-rate of the chewer, often to

the advantage of travellers like him:

[…] the arrieros and others with whom I travelled always provided a store of coca amongst the first articles, when preparing for a journey. Any of these Indians will think nothing of keeping on the run all day behind the baggage-mules, and doing thirty or forty miles daily for weeks together.

(Mathews 1879: 203)

He mentions coca a number of times, and, apart from one reference to it as a mooted cure for

soroche (altitude sickness), it is always in the context of a particular area’s commodities. For

Mathews, coca is simply another plant from which money can be made. He is not a coca-

chewer, out of both indifference to its flavour and the fact that ‘I have always been fortunate

enough to have sufficient provision for the day's requirements in my saddle-bags’ (Mathews

1879: 203), but does not have any strong opinions on the leaf. Mathews’ commercial interest

reflects the first stage of the process of transculturation of coca which continues today – a

complex matter which will be discussed in detail in chapter three.

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Julian Duguid was a writer who travelled to Buenos Aires in 1929 with two

acquaintances in order to cross the Gran Chaco. At Corumba, they hired the famous hunter

Sasha Siemel to guide them, whom Duguid nicknames ‘Tiger-Man’. Green Hell (1933)

chronicles the various mishaps that occurred along the way, the title referring to the way Duguid

came to regard the Chaco. It is a rather curious book – the people and events are real, yet the

book reads like a novel. An online search for information on the author revealed that some

booksellers categorize the work as fiction. Duguid employs a rather comic tone throughout and

at times it is unclear if his opinions are serious, or tongue-in-cheek. The book crosses the

boundary between travel writing and the adventure novels that will be discussed in the next

section.

Duguid spends some time in Buenos Aires before travelling to the Chaco. Duguid’s

comments regarding Argentina provide an interesting counterpoint to his later remarks on

Bolivia. Argentina is, by Duguid’s standards, a civilized country. It is clear that Duguid’s

conception of civilization is based upon British norms – Argentina is civilized because it is like

Britain:

The Argentino to-day is an enthusiastic creature, passionately proud of his country, and devoted to sport. The European conception of a nation of greasy dagoes wasting its manhood on the fruits of the white slave trade is rather sillier than most generalisations. In actual fact there are more football and boxing clubs, more yachting and rowing and wrestling than in any country in the Old World, except England and Germany… and the athlete is as much worshipped as he is at a British public school… Britain has taught the Argentino a lot.

(Duguid 1933: 25-26)

Duguid’s comments reflect the contemporaneous subaltern position of Spain according to

Europe’s internal power structures. The logic of coloniality is still in operation insofar as

Duguid’s observations presuppose the superiority of European civilization and privilege the

Western gaze, but the matrix of colonial power has shifted. Argentina, which had seen

significant amounts of British immigration, is less Latin than Duguid expected, and so is on its

way to joining the world of culture and civilization, rather than the archaic world of nature.

Despite Duguid’s admiration for Argentina, he does not really enjoy himself there, as it

rained the whole time. While Duguid may have exaggerated his disappointment for comic effect,

his remarks are instructive of the hierarchical relationship between core and periphery, and the

presumed superiority of the former:

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I have often regretted that Buenos Aires did not stoop to win our affection. It would have been so easy for her to smile during the ten days we lodged with her… Still, she chose differently, and can blame none but herself for the clammy memories which are all that remain with us

(Duguid 1933: 27)

It is the responsibility of Latin America(ns) to impress Europe(ans), not the other way around.

Meanwhile, the Bolivian Chaco remains completely primitive and uncivilized, and

Duguid (1933: 105) bemoans the ‘terrible austerity’ of this so-called Green Hell. He later

describes his first time alone in the Chaco at night:

I had seen [Green Hell] from the river and had ventured through her shadows by daylight, but in all those excursions I had been within hail of man. Now I was alone, riding into the distance, abnormally conscious of all that seemed to be still… Green Hell was as silent as a mother watching the sleep of her child. Presently the moon sank and a soft, cool darkness fell over the world. My horse, which hitherto had been marching cheerfully, began to feel the uneasy element in the silence. It whinnied and shook its head till the bit rattled at the echoing force of the reply. It edged past shadows and lay back on the reins when a night bird fluttered through the trees. It stood in trembling indecision for a good five minutes, oblivious to spur or voice when the stench of a dead companion was blown across the path.

(Duguid 1933: 124)

The virtually untouched landscape renders the writer vulnerable and uneasy, since the

‘uncivilized’ parts of Latin America are inherently sinister, and indeed hellish. While Duguid

cannot be considered part of the capitalist vanguard per se, he certainly shares their alarm at

untamed nature.

The small settlement of San Lorenzo provides further evidence of the Chaco’s

uncivilized ways:

Life in these conditions becomes the most simple affair in the world. Ambition is either dead or was never born. From year's end to year's end, through rain and heat and storm these people lead their unassuming, placid lives in utter ignorance that there is such a place as Europe.

(Duguid 1933: 145)

For Duguid, lack of knowledge of Europe is the ultimate indication of primitiveness. This

perception is scarcely surprising – if to be civilized means being like Europeans, then it follows

that those unaware of Europe’s existence cannot be civilized. Presumably, a European’s

knowledge, or lack thereof, of places like San Lorenzo has no bearing on his or her

sophistication. In this fashion, travel writing yet again reveals the logic of coloniality.

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Duguid openly admires Argentina’s capitalist outlook:

Freed from the fetters of Spain, Buenos Aires became the centre of a nation. It was no longer a useful blockhouse to ward off raids against Peru. It had its own destiny and its people learned to be a race [...] It welcomed foreign capital, placed its public works in the hands of Englishmen, and lay back on its ownership of the soil while the gringo laboured. In this simple manner many fortunes were made, and railroads crept across the pampas.

(Duguid 1933: 25)

He applauds the openness to trade which allowed Englishmen to make money from, and

develop the country, with the (British) railway system exemplifying Argentina’s status as a

civilized nation. Clearly, Britain has had a civilizing influence on Argentina. However, the

inference that Englishmen did all the hard work promotes the stereotype of the lazy Latin

American, despite Duguid’s earlier condescension toward the stereotype of the ‘greasy dago’.

It appears that, for Duguid, a person’s merit rests upon their industriousness.

Remarking of Bolivia that ‘In reality it is two countries with utterly different outlooks, inhabitants

and industries’ (Duguid 1933: 103), he proceeds to offer the reader a comparison of said

inhabitants, claiming that the:

Chiquitano Indians of the east are an idle lot, sun-soaked and complacent, content to allow the seasons to roll over them and to live simply on the fertility of the soil… For a century or so the Jesuits gave them a soul but that has long since vanished in the murk which fell over the Chiquitos after the expulsion. The Quechuas, on the other hand, over whom the Incas reigned, and the Aymara with whom the Incas fought, are virile, fighting races not unlike the Highland Scot in the obstinacy with which they wrest a living from the stony soil.

(Duguid 1933: 103-104)

Hence, while Duguid is not part of the capitalist vanguard insofar as he seeks adventure rather

than fortune, he employs anti-conquest rhetoric in that he disdains formal imperialism while

applauding Britain’s capitalist expansion. It is no coincidence that Duguid praises the work ethic

of those who live in highland Bolivia. After all, that part of the country was home to the minerals

which Europeans had sought so highly, and from which they made so much money. Of course,

Duguid ignores the role of Chiquitano labour in the rubber boom of the late eighteenth and early

nineteenth centuries, and in the construction of the Santa Cruz to Corumba railway line.

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Conclusions

This chapter has outlined historical representations of Latin America in order to provide

a context for contemporary press representations of Bolivia and Evo Morales. The section has

identified a number of features common to travel writing, adventure fiction, and political and

cultural commentary, and has established a general pattern of representation that will be

referred to throughout the rest of this thesis. As explained earlier, the thesis seeks to establish

the extent to which contemporary British press representations of Bolivia are rooted in that

pattern, and the extent to which the Bolivian press show signs of having internalized the

Western gaze by reproducing the same pattern. The next three chapters analyse British and

Bolivian press coverage of Bolivia’s general elections in 2002, 2005, and 2009; the coca leaf;

and non-renewable energy sources. Mignolo’s logic of coloniality will be referred to throughout

the three chapters, and is particularly relevant to the chapters on coca and energy, insofar as

British press treatment of both are bound by old forms of imperial condescension cloaked in the

rhetoric of development. Pratt’s capitalist vanguard is central to the chapter on energy, while her

notion of anti-conquest rhetoric is particularly relevant to the chapter related to elections. Her

concept of transculturation will be particularly useful for the chapter on the coca leaf. Foster’s

central thesis, that British representations of Latin America have often had little to do with the

region itself and have been dictated by domestic concerns rather than the reality of Latin

America, is of relevance to all three chapters. The notion of Latin America as chaotic and

untamed, as in Humboldt’s rendering of the continent as Nature, along with the notions of

Europeans as natural leaders, and of Latin Americans as an exotic albeit irrational Other,

manifest themselves more subtly throughout the material and will be referred to at various

points in this analysis.

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Chapter Two

Elections

This chapter examines the personal, through an analysis of the British and Bolivian

press coverage of Bolivia’s general elections in 2002, 2005, and 2009. The analysis explores

the ways in which the British press reproduces patterns of representation of Latin America that

were established during the nineteenth century. The chapter also reveals the extent to which

the Bolivian press shows signs of having internalized these representations. The coverage will

be discussed chronologically, and each election will be discussed in distinct sections prior to

drawing together the common features of the coverage to form more general conclusions. As

made clear in the section relating to metholodology, quantitative analysis dominates this chapter

much more than is the case in chapters three and four, since the articles examined in this

chapter are less suitable for qualitative analysis than those analysed in subsequent chapters.

The elections coverage, particularly in the case of the UK press, contains less discussion and

analysis, and more straightforward reporting of facts, than the coverage discussed in chapters

three and four. This allows for a useful contrast to the other chapters.

The three elections came at a time of major political change in Bolivia, which saw the

increased political visibility of previously marginalized social and ethnic groups, a wave of

popular protests, the annihilation of the so-called ‘traditional’ political parties, and the

emergence of a new political elite in the form of the Movimiento al Socialismo – Instrumento

Político por la Soberanía de los Pueblos (MAS-IPSP, or more commonly, MAS) party. While

each analytical section will be immediately preceded by a very brief overview of the relevant

election, first it is necessary to provide some historical background in order to elucidate the

factors driving such change. This background information will touch on matters related to the

coca leaf and non-renewable energy sources since it is impossible to completely extricate either

topic from the overall political context, but it should be noted that coca and energy will be

discussed in detail in chapters three and four respectively.

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Political background

Evo Morales and the Movimiento al Socialismo

Evo Morales of the MAS was elected president of Bolivia on 18 December 2005, taking

53.74 per cent of the vote (Moldiz 2008: 5). His nearest rival Jorge Fernando "Tuto" Quiroga

Ramírez of Poder Democrático y Social (PODEMOS) obtained 28.6 per cent (Romero Ballivián

2005: 41). Morales’s election was significant for several reasons, not least since his electoral

campaign promised Bolivians a shift from the neo-liberal policies pursued by successive

governments since the mid-1980s. The margin of Morales’s victory itself is noteworthy, since

historically few Bolivian presidents have secured outright majorities. Generally, successful

candidates collect under twenty-five per cent of the vote and must secure hasty alliances with

their rivals prior to the run-off congressional vote that follows.1 According to Hylton and

Thomson (2007: 129), only Víctor Paz Estenssoro, after the national revolution of 1952, took

office with a similar level of popular legitimacy. Furthermore, Morales is the first president of

Bolivia to identify himself as indigenous. It is rather apposite that one of the first deeds of Paz

Estenssoro’s popular government would constitute the beginning of a slow process that saw the

poor and indigenous majority become a key constituency, ultimately facilitating the election of

the similarly popular Morales. The introduction of universal suffrage in 1952 – by extending

voting rights to include the illiterate – meant, as indicated by Herbert S. Klein (2011: 265-67),

that every government which followed had to make some concessions to the indigenous

peasant masses. Whilst often such concessions were simply empty gestures or unfulfilled

promises, and it would take several generations for the masses to acquire a truly effective

political influence, the impact of universal suffrage cannot be ignored. In December 2009,

Morales successfully sought re-election, the first time in forty-five years a president has been

democratically elected for a second consecutive term. (Corte Nacional Electoral 2009: 49).

Morales, born in 1959 in the rural Orinoca district of the department of Oruro, came

from an extremely poor background. Four of his seven siblings died in childhood. After moving

to Jujuy in Argentina with his family, his first job consisted of selling confectionery at five years

1 Bolivian voters approved a new constitution in 2009, and consequently the congressional run-off is no longer part of

Bolivia’s electoral system. Instead, a public run-off election is held in the event that no candidate wins by either an absolute majority or a minimum of 40 per cent of the vote plus ten per cent over their nearest rival. The new constitution will be discussed in more detail in chapter two.

56

old. After returning to Orinoca, he founded a football team and was later elected by the three

ayllus (communities) of Orinoca to coach the squad for the entire district. After moving to the

Chapare province in the early 1980s, he became Sports Secretary of the San Francisco chapter

of the coca growers’ union Federación de Cocaleros del Trópico (FCT). He worked his way up

the union’s hierarchy to become General Secretary of the FCT and in 1997 was elected to

Congress. The FCT was the sole trade union to endure the prevailing neo-liberal environment

and have direct political representation in Congress (Hylton and Thomson 2007: 129-130).

The political party Morales represents, the MAS, grew out of the movement to defend

the interests of the cocaleros, along with the more traditional urban trade union base such as

miners. The party was created in 1998 after a split in the leadership of the Asamblea de la

Soberanía de los Pueblos (ASP), itself an offshoot of the Confederación Sindical Unica de

Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia (CSUTCB) (Moldiz 2008: 28). The ASP’s leader, Alejo

Véliz, expelled Morales from the party after the 1997 elections, which the ASP fought via an

alliance with the Izquierda Unida (IU). While Véliz failed to win a seat in Congress, Morales did,

along with three IU deputies from the Chapare with whom he had close personal ties. Véliz

accused Morales of trying to undermine him and the ASP. Most of ASP’s grassroots support

initially backed Morales, who established the Instrumento Político por la Soberanía de los

Pueblos (IPSP). The choice of party name proved controversial. The IPSP was denied legal

recognition by the Corte Nacional Electoral (CNE) and the prefix MAS was attached to the party

name in order to circumvent this ruling. The name, along with its 1987 registration details, was

borrowed from a Bolivian Falangist bloc known as Movimiento al Socialismo-Unzaguista (MAS-

U). The MAS-IPSP also adopted the flag and colours of the MAS-U (Harnecker and Fuentes

2008: 71-76). Such associations drew criticism, not least from Felipe Quispe, leader of the

CSUTCB and later a significant rival of Morales. Quispe disassociated himself from the MAS on

the grounds that the fascist connections of the name were contrary to indigenous identity

(Monasterios, Stefanoni and do Alto 2007: 79).

The MAS represents, or at least purports to represent, both syndicalists and the

indigenous, in that it seeks to implement policies that reflect those of the traditional left, whilst

emphasizing the sovereignty and traditions of the indigenous peoples of Bolivia. The reasons

behind the unprecedented popularity of Morales and the MAS are hugely complex. This

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popularity can be partially explained in light of the economic policies pursued in Bolivia since

1985, along with the tension between the country’s indigenous and creole identities. This is not

to say that Morales and the MAS’s electoral victories can be fully accounted for via the simple

dichotomies of left/right, international neoliberal interests/national-popular interests, or

indigenous/creole, tempting though that may be. Rather, it is the result of a unique convergence

of hitherto disparate popular forces throwing their support behind a perceived alternative to the

prevailing economic wisdom, as issues regarding the exploitation of natural resources,

particularly gas and oil, water, and coca, came to dominate popular political discourse.

Politics and ethnicity in Bolivia

Historically, there have been two strands to popular political expression in Bolivia. The

national-popular struggle is typified by the overthrow in 1952 of the oligarchic elite that had

dominated since independence in 1825. Broadly speaking, the national-popular groups are

made up of the traditional left, supported by the urban working-class and trade unions. The

‘Indian’ outlook, on the other hand, has its origins in the anti-colonial revolutions of the 1780s by

Tupaj Amaru, Tupaj Katari and Tomás Katari. As the two strands follow separate courses, the

relationship between them has been fraught with difficulty. The Indian notion of nationality often

clashes with the ideals of the leftist mestizos and creoles, while the national-popular causes

have tended to subordinate their Indian components. Moreover, the Indian outlook in itself can

be divided into two broad categories. The kataristas view capitalism, as well as colonialism, as

central to social injustice and consequently peasant class consciousness and Aymara/Quechua

ethnic consciousness are regarded as complementary. The indianistas however, often more

radical in outlook, have less of a base in trade unions and place greater emphasis on racial,

rather than class, domination. According to the 2001 census, sixty-one per cent of the Bolivian

population consider themselves indigenous. Thirty-one per cent identify as Quechua, twenty-

five per cent Aymara and six per cent as one of the thirty-one other indigenous groups,

including Guaraní, Chiquitano and Mojeño. Most of the indigenous population live in the western

and south-western altiplano, with the indigenous population reaching eighty-four per cent and

seventy-eight per cent in the departments of Potosí and La Paz respectively. Meanwhile, the

equivalent figure in the north-eastern, tropical lowland department of Pando is just sixteen per

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cent, and twenty per cent in the eastern lowland department of Tarija (Instituto Nacional de

Estadística 2001).2

Bolivia’s neoliberal era

After a period of military rule beginning in 1964, the centre-left Unidad Democrática

Popular (UDP) took democratic control in 1982, amid high expectations and a sense of popular

power. The UDP administration failed to meet those expectations. Between 1982 and 1985,

strikes increased. In order to maintain public spending and placate the striking unions, the

government simply devalued the Boliviano. By 1985, Bolivia had the world’s highest inflation

rate. The middle class, watching their savings and income dwindle to virtually nothing,

welcomed the neo-liberal “solutions” advocated in some quarters (Dunkerley 2007: 125-132).

In 1985, Paz Estenssoro was elected to his fourth and final term as president. To bring

the economy under control, he recruited Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, a US-educated

technocrat, who designed the Nueva Política Económica (NPE), aimed at dismantling Bolivia’s

system of state capitalism. The policy, encapsulated by Decreto Supremo 21060, was a

doctrinaire application of neoliberal measures advocated by US economist Jeffrey Sachs.

Government spending rapidly decreased and the monetary system was reorganized, which

stopped hyperinflation, yet pushed the country into recession. Foreign investment was

encouraged. As the world market price of tin collapsed, the state mines were privatised despite

having provided the majority of state revenue since the 1920s (Dunkerley 2007: 147-48).

Privatization led to twenty thousand job losses amongst the miners (Dangl 2007: 39). Many of

the miners moved from altiplano mining centres in Potosí and Oruro to the central and eastern

parts of the country, particularly to the Chapare. Most turned to farming, and there was an

increase in growth of the coca leaf. Coca, which will be discussed at length in chapter three, is a

small green leaf which has medicinal properties, and also plays an important social and

religious role in Bolivian culture. However, the leaf became a central political issue since it is a

vital ingredient in the synthetic drug cocaine. In 1988, Ley 1008 was passed after substantial

2 It should be made clear that the percentages regarding the indigenous population account for those aged fifteen years

and above only, while the figure for the total population includes all ages. Consequently, one can assume the actual indigenous population is much higher than the census figures show. For example, the total population in 2001 was 8,274,325. The number of respondents aged fifteen and above who identify as Quechua was 1,555,641- thirty-one per cent of the total population.

59

pressure from the US. The law not only criminalized coca production outside specific areas and

above certain yields, but also set the basis for eradication schemes and the increased

militarization of coca-producing regions (Congreso Nacional de Bolivia 1988). However,

President Jaime Paz Zamora and Sánchez de Lozada failed to put eradication into practice,

allowing the deepening of neoliberal policies without directly confronting the cocaleros. The

programme of privatization, combined with a decrease in state development, helped exacerbate

the reliance on the crop. Whilst ‘alternative development’ for coca-producing areas was widely

discussed, little funding was made available and such programmes failed.

In 1993 Sánchez de Lozada took office as president, aiming to deepen the neo-liberal

reforms whilst ‘stabilizing and legitimating it through social reform’ (Hylton and Thomson 2007:

99). Sánchez de Lozada launched a ‘capitalization’ scheme which involved the sale of the

national oil and gas, electricity, and telecommunications firms, along with the national airline

and railway to transnational companies. Nevertheless, the state would retain fifty per cent

ownership in those companies, with the profits ring-fenced for the national pension fund.

Though the reforms succeeded in attracting foreign capital, there was little corresponding

economic growth and no increase in employment (Kohl 2006: 314). Moreover, privatization had

a significant impact upon state revenue. The proportion of profit retained by the state in relation

to Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), the state oil and gas company that had

been divided into various multinational-controlled subsidiaries, was reduced from fifty per cent

to eighteen percent. Although the reduction was only supposed to apply to new sites, the

‘capitalization’ scheme allowed existing, but unexplored, sites to be re-classified as ‘new’ sites

(Webber 2011b:140). This meant that, despite significant reductions in government expenditure

and regressive measures such as point-of-sale tariffs on energy, the budget deficit actually

increased (Kohl 2006: 314). Ownership and control of Bolivia’s natural resources was to

become the focus of popular protests from the late 1990s onward, and play a large part in the

victory of Morales and the MAS in the 2005 election. Whilst Morales and the party were not

always at the centre of popular demonstrations, the protests would both highlight and

exacerbate an electoral mood that would eventually see Morales sweep to power on a

nationalization platform.

60

In 1997, the former dictator Hugo Suárez Banzer, a military careerist who had been

trained by the US, returned to the presidential palace as head of the Acción Democrática

Nacionalista (ADN).3 Banzer launched Plan Dignidad, the coca eradication programme touted

since the promulgation of Ley 1008. By 2002, seventy per cent of all coca crops had been

destroyed, according to the government. The eradication programme was deemed a huge

success, though it was controversial since it undermined the cultural significance of the coca

leaf and its traditional uses. Meanwhile, the peasant families reliant on the cash crop lost their

source of income. It has been estimated that, between 1997 and 2002, US$600-900 million in

revenue and over fifty thousand jobs were lost each year as a result of eradication (Hylton and

Thomson 2007: 101-02). While the cocaleros resisted Plan Dignidad, lack of support from other

sectors meant that defiance was almost wholly ineffective. Nevertheless, the cocaleros became

increasingly politicized. The miners of Potosí and Oruro, as illustrated at length by Robert L.

Smale (2010), had constituted Bolivia’s most well-organized and powerful labour movement

since the latter part of World War One. It is therefore rather unsurprising that the cocaleros

would by the late 1990s become a powerful political force.

A wave of protests

In 1997, the World Bank had advised Sánchez de Lozada that Bolivia would get

US$600 million in debt relief should the water supply of Cochabamba be privatized. In

September 1999, the Banzer administration leased the city’s water supply contract to the

transnational consortium Aguas del Tunari until 2039. Furthermore, the guarantee of distribution

of water to rural areas was removed (Olivera and Lewis 2004: 8-10). The measures led to a

series of protests that became known as the Guerra del Agua. A cross-section of society,

including factory workers, farmers, cocaleros, and environmentalists lobbied against the

decision, under the appellation Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y la Vida, led by factory

worker Oscar Olivera. In January 2000, a city-wide general strike was called in reaction to a rate

increase. ‘Market regulation’ had resulted in water rates that constituted a quarter of the

household budget of those earning the minimum wage. Though the government agreed to

review the prices in light of the January strikes, change was not forthcoming, and in February

the Coordinadora announced another strike. This strike was declared illegal, the military and

3 Banzer was dictator from 1971 to 1978 (Klein 2011: 228-34).

61

police were ordered to take control of the city, and 175 people were injured, after which the

government announced a six-month price freeze. After the state violence there occurred what

Hylton and Thomson (2007: 103) refer to as ‘a rapid radicalization of demands’ whereby outright

rejection of multinational control of water and other national resources replaced calls for lower

prices. The Coordinadora’s ‘Last Battle’ took place in early April. The government made

anticipatory arrests of key figures in the Coordinadora and declared martial law. On 4 April, a

crowd of up to forty thousand people assembled in Cochabamba’s main plaza. After a

seventeen-year-old demonstrator was killed by a government sniper, the protest escalated and

barricades went up all over the city. Aguas del Tunari’s management contract was revoked on 9

April and water management was turned over to SEMAPA, a municipal agency. In addition,

demands were made for a constituent assembly that would endure over the coming years

(Olivera 2004: 28-49 and 136-139).

The actions of the Coordinadora had a profound impact upon popular participation,

particularly at municipal level. The diversity of the groups involved was hugely important. Not

only did the regional trade unions agitate for change, but Chapare cocaleros, neighbourhood

groups, peasant groups, indigenous groups, students, progressive intellectuals, the middle

class, street children, and various civic organizations joined in. As pointed out by Hylton and

Thomson (2007: 104), ‘...insofar as the “Coalition for the Defence of Water and Life” was

without hierarchical, caudillo leadership and uninfected by clientelism, it provided a dress

rehearsal, at municipal level, of the nationwide drama of October 2003, as well as an

inspirational political model for metropolitan anti-globalization activists’.

Concurrently, there were mobilizations in the areas surrounding Lake Titicaca and in the

Yungas, though there was no coordination between them.4 The CSUTCB, under Quispe,

organized blockades against the privatization of water and parts of Ley del Instituto Nacional de

Reforma Agraria (Ley INRA), a land reform law. While Quispe and his followers only created

temporary disruption, their calls for an Aymara nation composed of confederated communities

along with the concept of a polarized Bolivia composed of the indigenous at one end and the

q’ara, or non-Indian, at the other, gained credence in radicalized Aymara communities (Harten

2011: 116-117). In the Yungas, cocaleros and peasant migrants in protested against forced

4 The Yungas is another coca-growing region.

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eradication of coca crops, eventually winning concessions in the shape of an indefinite

postponement of eradication (Sanabria 2004: 162). By the end of 2000, Banzer had faced

various insurgencies in the altiplano, inter-montane valleys and the lowlands, all of which were

overcome after much difficulty and several concessions granted. Ultimately, however, the

absence of a concrete alliance between the Coordinadora, Quispe and Morales limited the

overall effectiveness of the protests at national level (Sivak 2008: 131).

When Sánchez de Lozada, who had been elected as president for a second time in

2002, proposed the temporary cessation of all coca eradication to appease the cocaleros, the

US responded by threatening to cut off all aid to Bolivia. In January 2003, the cocaleros, under

the leadership of Morales, began to protest via road blockades. Clashes between cocaleros and

security forces led to the deaths of more than a dozen people (Sivak 2008: 150-51). In

February, the government announced 12.5 per cent income tax. In response, the police went on

strike and revolt spread, particularly amongst the people living in the city of El Alto in the hills of

La Paz. The uprising was quickly extinguished by the state, leaving thirty-three dead Sánchez

de Lozada dismissed most of his cabinet and repealed the income tax measure. Whilst the

immediate effects of the protests were limited, they had damaged Sánchez de Lozada’s

credibility significantly (Harten 2011: 117).

In September, Quispe led a hunger strike in El Alto in protest at the arrest for murder of

an indigenous leader who had killed a pair of cattle rustlers, after the latter were condemned to

death under the conditions of community law. The case became incorporated into the agenda of

the protesters involved in strikes against the proposal to pipe Bolivian gas to the US via Chile.

Blockades of the roads from La Paz endured for three weeks and an eleven-day general strike

brought the city to a standstill. While Olivera, Morales and Quispe were all involved to some

extent in these mobilizations, they were, according to Hylton and Thomson (2007: 114-15),

incapable of providing strong leadership in La Paz, much less at national level, and in fact

‘heterogeneous popular forces organized themselves […] without waiting for orders from

political party, trade union, or other established leaders’. As a result, government attempts to

quell the protests were hindered. There were no coup attempts; rather, the emphasis was

placed upon the notion of community power. On 17 October, Sánchez de Lozada fled the

country. Vice-president Carlos Mesa assumed power temporarily, promising to drop the

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proposals to pipe gas through Chile, hold a referendum on hydrocarbon resources and hold a

new constituent assembly. Whilst Mesa had no real mandate to rule, political support came in

the shape of an implicit pact with Morales and the MAS. Morales used the opportunity to gain

concessions, including a cessation of coca eradication. The MAS was the only major

organization to support the hydrocarbons referendum. All other groups boycotted it on the

grounds that it did not include nationalization as an option and thus fell short of representing full

participatory democracy. While the referendum was passed, it failed to wipe out the underlying

tensions regarding the issue.

In January 2005, IMF-imposed price increases on gas and diesel led to more protests in

the altiplano. Meanwhile, the Federación de Juntas Vecinales de El Alto (FEJUVE) successfully

lobbied for the removal of the French-owned water firm Aguas de Illimani via a three-day strike.

As a result of the agitation, Congress renewed the debate on the nationalization of the

hydrocarbons sector. Ethnic and political divisions between the east and west of the country

intensified as the wealthy elites of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni and Pando joined forces as the

medialuna bloc in protest at that debate. Effectively, the protests by the left in the west led to

protests by the right in the east. Mesa eventually supported the medialuna and moved in a

decidedly rightist direction. The impact this had upon the left was lessened by an increasing

unity amongst the various movement leaders, illustrated by a meeting between the Central

Obrera Boliviana (COB), CSUTCB and the Coordinadora on 9 March. Later the same month, a

new energy law was passed with MAS support, thus bringing the continuing blockades to a halt.

While the new law stopped short of full nationalization, it did allow for increased government

revenues from the industry. The MAS’s support of the new law was pragmatic. Without MAS

support for Mesa, the protests may have gained momentum and the government would

probably have fallen. The MAS could not take the risk of provoking a strong reaction from the

right, which would have ended the party’s chances of ever controlling Congress, and Morales’s

for the presidency (Hylton and Thompson 2007: 188; Dangl 2007: 188). After further protests

broke out in May and June 2005, the government buckled. The tactics deployed in these series

of strikes were largely similar to those of October 2003, yet the increased unity between the

various movement leaders was crucial to the effectiveness of those tactics. After Mesa

resigned, Eduardo Rodríguez, president of the Supreme Court, assumed the presidency and

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immediately called elections for December 2005, which Morales and the MAS went on to win by

a landslide.

Morales’s popularity

The popularity of Morales and the MAS can be easily accounted for given the general

political context described above. However, it is not enough to explain Morales’s personal

ascent to the presidency. To a certain extent, Morales seems to have been in the right places at

the right time. Having moved to the Chapare shortly before the mass migration of miners into

the region, Morales was in a prime position to become established within the FCT before the

local population rose dramatically, with the later advantage of a previously well-organized and

cohesive labour force suddenly expanding the rank-and-file of the union. Attitudes towards

Morales range from the obsequious to the thoroughly unflattering. Hugo Moldiz (2008: 5)

indicates in a somewhat hagiographic book Bolivia en los tiempos de Evo that Morales

possesses the qualities of a great leader: ‘Dotado de una personalidad recia y carismática, y de

la sagacidad y la flexibilidad táctica que le permiten superar grandes obstáculos…’, while

Dominic Streatfeild quotes others who claim there is a sinister side to Morales’s union

leadership:

[Then head of the Fuerza Especial de Lucha Contra el Narcotráfico (FECLN), General Fernando] Tarifa... maintained that Morales himself was running an extortion operation to keep people in his union and stop them abandoning the coca cause. In effect, he was operating not a coca union but a cocaine mafia... [“] He puts pressure on people and forces them to do things. Anyone who doesn’t agree with him has everything taken away [“].

(Streatfeild 2005: 416)

It is at times difficult to separate the often tendentious, hyperbolic portrayals of Morales

from more objective accounts. As Hylton and Thomson (2007: 132) point out, contradictory

public statements by Morales and the MAS do not help – Morales is cast as at once a

charismatic caudillo ruling from the top down and a public servant simply obeying the people.5

James Dunkerley (2007: 2, 19-20), whilst labelling Morales ‘rather bumptious’, concedes that

5 Usually translated into English as leader, or more disparagingly, strongman, caudillo is the term used in Latin America

to describe charismatic, populist political leaders. The term is often, though not always, associated with authoritarianism. Juan Perón, the former president of Argentina (1946-1955 and 1973-1974) is Latin America’s emblematic caudillo. Though it is outwith the scope of this thesis to fully explore the similarities between the two leaders, Morales certainly shares Perón’s charisma. Moreover, his deliberately casual dress-sense and mass appeal is reminiscent of Perón’s support amongst the descamisados (‘shirtless ones’, a term used to describe Argentina’s working class), though it should be stressed that Perón usually dressed smartly in public, and that it could be argued his appeal amongst the descamisados was due to the working-class origins of his immensely popular first wife Eva as much as his own public persona.

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Morales’s ‘personal industriousness involves a concern with new ideas, even if he is an

unschooled and instinctively incurious man’. Yet it is beyond doubt that Morales connected with

the Bolivian public in a way that few candidates had managed before. He is an incredibly

charismatic figure that has projected a down-to-earth image, campaigning for election in trainers

and an anorak, and was able to persuade a large swathe of the public that he was one of them:

part of the indigenous majority, part of the downtrodden masses, and certainly not a part of the

wealthy elite whose lives were far-removed from that of ordinary Bolivians.

The 2002 election

The June 2002 general election saw the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario

(MNR) candidate Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada return to power, having already been president

between 1993 and 1997. Sánchez de Lozada obtained 22.5 per cent of the vote, Morales and

the MAS 20.9 per cent, and Manfred Reyes Villa and the NFR 20.9 per cent. Though Morales

and Reyes Villa were officially recorded as having taken the same percentage of the vote, the

former took second place with 581,884 votes over 581,163, a difference that is non-existent in

percentage terms (Tribunal Supremo Electoral, Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el

Desarrollo and Servicio Intercultural de Fortalecimiento 2010a: 238-239). Since Sánchez de

Lozada failed to obtain an outright majority, he and Morales were, along with their respective

parties, subject to a congressional run-off vote in which the elected deputies decide between

the two leading candidates. Though Reyes Villa and the NFR offered to make a pact with

Morales and the MAS in exchange for congressional support, Morales declined and Sánchez de

Lozada won the run-off.

Though ultimately the MNR won, the 2002 election marked the beginning of the decline

of Bolivia’s traditional parties, and would become the last election in which those parties would

be a significant force. The NFR, while not completely disassociating themselves from the

traditional order, criticized the prevailing climate of neoliberalism throughout their campaign, and

polls indicated that the party would take first place comfortably. The late surge of the MAS,

which benefitted the MNR, has been attributed to comments made by the then-US ambassador

to Bolivia, Manuel Rocha, who warned that US aid would be jeopardized should the electorate

vote for ‘los que quieren que Bolivia vuelva a ser un exportador de cocaína’, a transparent

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reference to the MAS (Tribunal Supremo Electoral, Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el

Desarrollo and Servicio Intercultural de Fortalecimiento 2010a: 237). Rocha’s comments were

popularly interpreted as an attempt by the US to interfere in Bolivia’s democratic process, and it

has been claimed that many people voted for the MAS in defiance of the US. Even the party

leadership was surprised to take second place, as the party took the biggest share of the vote in

the departments of La Paz, Cochabamba, Oruro, and Potosí (Harten 2011: 87). Alongside the

rise of the MAS was the decline of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR), led by ex-

president Jaime Paz Zamora, who came fourth in the election with 16.3 per cent of the vote.

The 2002 election in the British press

Situationality

Situationality, or the choice of terms used to describe an individual, is particularly

important with respect to the portrayal of Morales at election time. Through situationality, the

press may legitimize or delegitimize his candidacy, or portray him in a reductive manner. The

UK press, when discussing Morales’s involvement in the 2002 elections, describe him primarily

with reference to coca, as demonstrated by Table 2.1a. Nine of the thirty descriptions of

Morales define him solely in relation to coca, with a further three descriptions defining him in

relation to both coca and his ethnicity. Three additional descriptions define him in relation to his

ethnicity alone, while four descriptions define him in relation to political ideology. It appears that,

for the UK press, Morales’s most important defining characteristics during the 2002 election

were occupation and ideology, closely followed by ethnicity. As will be discussed later,

Morales’s occupation is also a defining characteristic for the Bolivian press in its coverage of the

2002 election, yet his political ideology is scarcely mentioned. Additionally, the Bolivian press

pays little attention to Morales’s ethnicity, whereas for the British press it is a defining

characteristic.

The British press tends to use more qualitative situationality devices in relation to

Morales than the Bolivian press. That is, where the Bolivian press uses straightforward

descriptions such as ‘el dirigente cocalero’ and ‘el político de izquierda’, the British press uses

more subjective ones such as ‘the charismatic leader of the indigenous coca growers’

(Guardian 3 August 2002) and ‘Bolivia’s leftwing upstart’ (Guardian 15 July 2002). The

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Guardian also describes Morales, rather oddly, as a ‘hawk-nosed Aymara’ (3 August 2002),

recalling the racialist discourses that have, particularly in the US, depicted an aquiline nose as a

typical trait of the stereotypical indigenous ‘noble warrior’ (Cramer 2006: 329). The word

candidate is scarcely used, appearing just four times. On three of those occasions the term

candidate is secondary to other descriptive terms, as in the case of ‘Bolivia’s socialist

presidential candidate’ or the inaccurate and extremely misleading ‘pro-cocaine presidential

candidate’. The latter of these underscores the British press’s disregard for the distinction

between the coca leaf and cocaine, which will be discussed at length in chapter three.

TABLE 2.1A: DESCRIPTIONS OF EVO MORALES IN BRITISH PRESS ARTICLES RELATING TO THE 2002

ELECTION6

Total (specific phrase) Total

Defined by Specific phrase

Coca 9 coca growers' leader 3

leader of the country's coca growers 2

the leader of the country's powerful coca growers' union 1

who supports coca farmers 1

charismatic coca growers' leader 1

the leader of the campaign to thwart US-led efforts to wipe out coca leaf production 1

Leftism 4 Bolivia's leftwing upstart 1

socialist 1

Bolivia's socialist presidential candidate 1

a fierce critic of free markets 1

Other 4 controversial and charismatic 1

one of two candidates in the run-off for the presidential election 1

union leader 1

farmers' leader 1

Ethnicity 3 a descendant of Aymara and Quechua Indians 1

an Aymara Indian activist 1

A hawk-nosed Aymara 1

Coca & ethnicity 3 the charismatic leader of the indigenous coca growers 1

a leader of mainly indigenous coca growers 1

the 42-year-old Indian-born leader of the mainly indigenous coca farming union 1

Cocaine 3

a presidential candidate who opposes American efforts to eradicate the coca crop from which cocaine is produced 1

pro-cocaine presidential candidate 1

a fiery, indigenous campaigner against free-market policies and the US-sponsored eradication of coca leaf, the raw material for cocaine 1

Leftism & coca 2 hard-left leader of Bolivia's cocaleros 1

6 In chapters two, three, and four, some tables appear without a breakdown by newspaper for ease of reading. The

breakdown are in the appendix, where the letter ‘a’ is changed to ‘b’ in the corresponding table– e.g., Table 2.1a relates to Table 2.1b in the appendix. Tables without a final letter do not have a corresponding table in the appendix.

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the socialist leader of the coca workers' union 1

Anti-US attitude 1 radical anti-US candidate 1

Leftism & ethnicity 1 Indian-born leader of the Socialist Movement 1

Bolivians as irrational objects

The focus on Morales’s ethnicity is accompanied by a subtle characterization of

Bolivians as being guided by emotions and passion, not dispassionate, rational analysis. The

Financial Times (28 June 2002: 8) refers to ‘mood swings’ and ‘disenchantment’, implying that

the decisions of the Bolivian electorate are simply born of caprice and fantasy. Meanwhile, the

Economist dismisses a key issue outright:

The new government faces two immediate controversies. The first concerns a plan to export gas via a pipeline to the Pacific coast. This is Bolivia’s main economic hope. The cheapest route is to a port in Chile. But that arouses passionate opposition among the many Bolivians who have not yet learned to live with their defeat by Chile in a war 120 years ago.

(Economist 10 August 2002)

In implying that Bolivians should simply accept the inevitability of a pipeline through

Chile, the paper suggests that opposition is motivated by petty rivalry, showing contempt for

those Bolivians who feel that the country’s current economic position is compounded by lack of

coastal access. Bolivian territory incorporated a significant stretch of the Pacific coastline until

the War of the Pacific, which along with the Chaco War will be discussed in more detail in

chapter four. Consequently, the proposal to route a pipeline through that same area was

opposed on the grounds that Chile would profit from Bolivia’s loss of coastline yet again.

Though it generally advocates an export-led extractive economy as key to Bolivia’s

development, the Economist mentions neither the loss of a coastline and an area rich in mineral

wealth, nor the impact such losses have had on Bolivia’s economic fortunes. By suggesting

many Bolivians are merely holding on to old wounds rather than entertaining the idea that their

opinions constitute a reading of the way in which history affects the present, the Economist

draws Bolivians as emotional and irrational, recalling the ways in which historical

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representations cast Latin Americans as driven by emotion, while Europeans were driven by

reason.

It should be noted, however, that the Economist had provided more clarity in another

article published a month earlier, which explained the loss of coastline. The earlier article

nevertheless reinforces the idea that Bolivians are prone to fantasy and imprudence with

reference to ‘impossible expectations’ and by suggesting that ‘nationalistic Bolivians’ must

‘swallow their pride’ (Economist 6 July 2002), and suggests Bolivians are shallow, favouring

style over substance:

Right up to polling day, it seemed Bolivians would fall for the charmer. Manfred Reyes Villa, a slick former soldier with a handsome moustache, promised to dump the free-market “neoliberal” policies that South America’s poorest country has followed for the past 15 years […]

(Economist 6 July 2002)

After implying Reyes Villa’s popularity is due to Bolivians being easily hoodwinked by

appearances, the paper rather improbably suggests that the polished Gonzalo Sánchez de

Lozada, whose campaign strategy was devised by the prominent US political consultants

James Carville, Stan Greenberg, Jeremy Rosner, Bob Shrum, and Tad Devine (Boynton 2005),

is the opposite of slick and charming: ‘[…] Mr Reyes found himself neck-and-neck with the very

embodiment of such IMF-inspired policies: ex-president Gonzalo (“Goni”) Sanchez de Lozada, a

grizzled, American-educated businessman with a thick gringo accent’ (Economist 6 July 2002).

The implication is that believing Reyes Villa’s public image and manifesto is senseless, while

believing the public image and manifesto of a US-educated and US-backed candidate is

common sense, implying that Anglo-American laissez-faire norms are inevitably superior. This is

reinforced by the Financial Times’ claim that ‘The [neoliberal] reforms […] turned Bolivia into a

paragon of what the “Washington Consensus” economic model could achieve for developing

countries’ (Financial Times 28 June 2002: 8), which, in essentially suggesting that developing

countries are in need of the influence of wealthier nations, recalls the logic of coloniality and the

civilizing discourse of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Of course, this twenty-first

century version of the civilizing discourse differs from that of the nineteenth century insofar as

explicitly racialized discourses have disappeared. The twenty-first century version of the

civilizing discourse manifests itself as a more subtle, cultural variation that, though not explicitly

racist, nevertheless positions Latin America as a mere receptacle for ideas generated

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elsewhere. That is, though the UK press no longer talks about ‘noble savages’ or ‘greasy

dagoes’, the assumptions of cultural and epistemic superiority remain. Nevertheless, it should

be pointed out that Bolivia was in need of IMF assistance not long before the article was written

and hence it could be argued that such assumptions are justified in this.

Nevertheless, the Economist acknowledges the role played by poverty in boosting

Morales’s popularity, indicating that opposition to the status quo is not entirely unfounded:

Mr Morales will give him [Sánchez de Lozada] tough opposition. […His rise] owes something to heavy-handed warnings not to vote for him from Manuel Rocha, the American ambassador. But it owed more to Bolivia’s economic troubles, and especially those of the impoverished countryside.


The Guardian’s coverage of the 2002 election, whilst broadly sympathetic to indigenous

Bolivians, romanticizes them as the exotic Other, as curios that are there for Western

consumption:

Bowler-hatted women in multi-layered skirts with babies slung on their backs are what tourists expect to see in the streets of La Paz, the Bolivian capital, which lies surrounded by the snowcapped Andes, 4,270 metres (14,000ft) above sea level. But this week, together with men in ponchos and woollen hats, some of the women walked into congress, not as street sellers but to take their seats in Bolivia’s newly elected parliament.

(Guardian 3 August 2002)

While the Guardian is not in any way implying that the election of indigenous people to congress

is a bad thing, the idea that indigenous people, and particularly indigenous women, are ‘what

tourists expect to see’ objectifies them entirely. Clearly, the intent is to highlight the significance

of the election of large numbers of indigenous congressional representatives, yet rather than

giving an example of the discrimination faced by indigenous people in order to put it into

context, they are portrayed in terms of the Western gaze, thereby undermining the notion of

indigenous Bolivians as autonomous citizens. This objectification recalls the travel writer

Edmond Temple’s (1830) rendering of indigenous Peruvians and Bolivians as simply incidental

to the landscape, as discussed in chapter one. Though this study is not overtly concerned with

representations of gender, it is worth noting that the Guardian’s objectification of indigenous

women in particular is repeated in its coverage of the 2005 election.

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Discourse representation

Table 2.2a shows that there are a total of 46 instances of discourse representation in

the British coverage of Bolivia’s 2002 election. European/US analysts, that is, European and

US-based individuals that work for ostensibly neutral bodies such as think-tanks or business

intelligence firms, are the most commonly cited sources of information, with 8 instances of

discourse representation. The analysts are closely followed by the then-US ambassador to

Bolivia, Manuel Rocha, and US officials, with 7 instances of discourse representation each,

while the two candidates Evo Morales and Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada are quoted 6 times

each. European and US discourse is slightly more likely to feature in the British press coverage

of Bolivian elections than is Bolivian discourse, though the numerical differences are so small as

to mean that discourse representation is relatively balanced, suggesting that Bolivians are no

longer the silent objects of the European gaze that featured in nineteenth century travel writing.

Nevertheless, it is important to note that boundary maintenance is lowest with respect to

European and US analysts, with all 8 instances occurring as ID. Boundary maintenance is also

lower with respect to US officials and Rocha than either Morales or Sánchez de Lozada,

indicating that the UK press more readily absorbs and incorporates the discourse of European

and US-based analysts and the US government than political actors of the country being

covered. The use of analysts, particularly prevalent in articles related to energy and coca, is

problematic. Though analysts provide a veneer of neutrality insofar as they are not directly

involved in the situation at hand, they are often far from impartial. Think-tanks in particular often

have overt ideological leanings that colour any analysis they may offer, whilst business

intelligence analysts work on behalf of large multinationals which may have interests in the

country being discussed, or in any case are embedded in the Western capitalist structure.

Moreover, the use of non-Bolivian analysts means that the analysis, however informative, is

inevitably bound by the logic of coloniality and privileges colonial perspectives by denying

Bolivians themselves a voice. Of course, one could speculate that it may be difficult for the UK

press to find suitable Bolivian analysts, due to factors such as distance and language barriers.

However, the use of US-based analysts suggests that distance is not so important, and it seems

rather unlikely that no-one in Bolivia has both the depth of political knowledge and English

language skills that would make them suitable sources. It is rather more likely that the UK press

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uses European and US-based analysts out of habit. To a certain extent, a lack of Bolivian

voices renders the country what Foster termed a lost world.

Overall however, the low levels of discourse representation with respect to the 2002

election make it difficult to arrive at any firm conclusions, other than reiterating that, as stated

above, the frequency with which the UK press quotes Bolivian sources contrasts with historical

patterns of representation in which the local population was rendered either invisible or mute.

Ultimately, these figures are more useful as a point of comparison with both the Bolivian

coverage of the same election and the coverage in either country of later elections, which will be

discussed later in this chapter.

TABLE 2.2A: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH PRESS ARTICLES RELATING TO THE 2002

ELECTION

All papers Total DD DD(S) ID UNSIG

Evo Morales 2 1 3 0 6

Manfred Reyes Villa 0 0 3 0 3

Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada 1 1 4 0 6

Bolivian public 0 0 2 0 2

Bolivian media 0 1 0 0 1

Bolivian other 2 0 2 0 4

Manuel Rocha 1 0 6 0 7

US officials 1 0 6 0 7

Critics of US officials 0 0 1 0 1

Organization of American States 0 0 1 0 1

European/US analysts 0 0 8 0 8

Total 7 3 36 0 46

Latin America’s Left-turn

Later Bolivian elections – especially the 2005 election – were contextualized in terms of

a Latin American ‘left-turn’ narrative by the British press. This narrative advanced the idea that,

in the early 2000s, the election of several Latin American governments which challenged the

existing political orthodoxy of their countries constituted a ‘pink tide’ of left-wing governments.

The narrative, as will be discussed in the section relating to the British press’s coverage of the

2005 election, downplayed the differences between various governments in order to group them

together as an easily-identifiable trend, the only nuance being that these governments could be

divided in two – the ‘responsible’ leftists and ‘irresponsible’ leftists (read: centrist/centre-left

governments and unambiguously leftist governments). It should be noted that the narrative is

present in academic literature as well as the mainstream media (Lievesley and Ludlam 2009,

Panizza 2009, and Silva 2009). Yet this narrative is virtually absent from coverage of the 2002

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elections, appearing just twice, on both occasions in the Financial Times: ‘The surge in

popularity for Mr Morales also reflects a region-wide disenchantment with the orthodox

economic model’ (Financial Times 2 July 2002: 8), and:

Bolivia, an important gauge of mood swings in South America, looks poised to embrace the kind of anti-free market politics that are gaining ground elsewhere in the region […] a backlash against market-driven reforms is building momentum. Anti-free market sentiment is on the rise in Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Peru.

(Financial Times 28 June 2002: 8)

The Guardian hints at a regional trend, but without explicitly identifying one. Instead the

paper focuses on the US: ‘[…] the latest in a series of recent interventions by the US in Latin

American elections in an attempt to keep leftwing politicians from power’ (Guardian 15 July

2002). The article goes on to reference Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of

Nicaragua, but does not situate the political fortunes of any one of the three within any kind of

regional trend, unlike the Financial Times.

Of course, the extent to which the 2002 election could be interpreted as being part of

Latin America’s left-turn was limited given that the victorious candidate was the chief architect of

Bolivia’s neoliberal experiment, so the narrative’s absence from other newspapers is not

especially surprising. However, it is interesting that the Financial Times, rather than any other

paper, seeks to locate Morales’s strong showing within a broader regional trend. The core

demographic of the Financial Times is such that the newspaper publishes news and information

that may be useful to investors, and as such the Financial Times is at the heart of the modern

equivalent of Pratt’s capitalist vanguard, advising Britons of opportunities for financial gain in

Latin America. By situating Morales’s increased popularity within an anti-free market regional

trend the Financial Times is essentially suggesting that its readers should be cautious about

investing in Bolivia – and Latin America as a whole. The propensity of the British press to act as

the modern capitalist vanguard is particularly pertinent to Bolivia’s extractive industries and will

be discussed in more detail in chapter four. The fact that the Financial Times appears to have

forecasted Bolivia’s part in the ‘pink tide’ earlier than the other newspapers could be construed

as evidence that it is the readers of financial papers that are deemed to have the greatest need

for accurate and detailed world news – though admittedly the extent to which one accepts this

depends upon the extent to which one accepts the notion of a ‘pink tide’ or ‘left-turn’ in the first

place.

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The Financial Times further fulfils its role in the capitalist vanguard when reporting on

the congressional run-off election contested by Morales and Sánchez de Lozada. Noting that

the choice is between ‘[…] a fierce critic of free markets […]’ and ‘[…] an advocate of free

markets and privatisation’ (Financial Times 11 July 2002: 9), the paper is essentially warning its

readers of market uncertainty – a key deterrent to would-be investors. The warning is repeated

a few weeks later: ‘Evo Morales, Bolivia’s socialist presidential candidate, stands against

Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, right-wing ex-president’ (Financial Times 29 July 2002: 34). Such

warnings not only function to serve pecuniary interests, but also render the Bolivian election a

simple choice between two polar opposites. Such simplifications ignore the complexity of

Bolivia’s political culture and the way in which Bolivian political actors interact and negotiate and

contest control of the state apparatus and the nation’s resources. In particular, it ignores the

way in which Morales’s increased popularity was the result of pressure from below – itself a

result of a consolidation of the demands of otherwise disparate interest groups – starting to

reach a critical mass and suggest that the Bolivian left and right are united under Morales and

Sánchez de Lozada respectively.

The Economist, in contrast, makes the fragmented nature of Bolivia’s political

landscape a little clearer:

Faced with a choice of 11 parties, each with its own presidential candidate, Bolivians seem to have voted both for radical change and for more of the same. Most votes were shared among candidates who promised a rupture, including Evo Morales, the hard-left leader of Bolivia’s cocaleros (coca growers), who campaigned against the American-backed policy of eradicating coca plantations and was closing fast on the leaders with a surprising 21%. And yet Bolivians gave Mr Sanchez’s misleadingly named Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR) more seats in Congress than any other party, though not a majority.


Here the Economist provides a concise overview of the election for readers unfamiliar with

Bolivia, without portraying the country as completely polarized, or suggesting that voters have a

choice between two extremes only. In addition, it makes clear that Sánchez de Lozada’s

electoral success owes as much to the fragmentation of the left as his own electoral appeal.

Though the Economist’s coverage of the 2002 election is not completely unproblematic, it does

reflect the complexity of Bolivian politics more fully than the other titles.

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The Independent, though noting that there were eleven presidential candidates, also

describes the election as a choice between left and right, albeit something of a tripartite choice:

‘The battle to succeed President Jorge Quiroga Ramirez is led by the rightist Manfred Reyes

Villa […] The former presidents Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who wants market reform, and

the left-wing Jaime Paz Zamora are vying for second place’ (Independent 1 July 2002). Reyes

Villa is rather more populist than definitively right-wing, and the description of Paz Zamora as

‘left-wing’ is especially incongruous. Though Paz Zamora had been a part of the radical left

during the 1970s, both he and his party, the MIR, had become increasingly conservative from

1985 onwards, and by the 2002 election could be considered a centrist party at most.

Coca and the 2002 election

While the extractive industries receive little attention within the British press coverage of

the 2002 election, the coca leaf has some attention paid to it, largely because of Morales’s

position as leader of the FCT. The Economist is sympathetic to Morales’s position on coca. Not

only does it explicitly identify the coca eradication programme as a cause of rural poverty and

economic stagnation, it suggests that the US is at fault:

He [Morales] clearly sees his future role as that of opposition leader – in Congress and, if that doesn’t bring results, back on the streets where his movement began as an uprising against the deepening of the rural poverty caused by the anti-coca programme. In the final days of the campaign, America’s ambassador clumsily warned voters that the foreign loans and aid that Bolivia depends on might be stopped if Mr Morales’s group gained power […] The coca eradication programme, and the economic troubles amongst Bolivia’s neighbours, have cut the country’s annual growth rate from the 5% seen in the mid-1990s to only 1.2% last year.


The paper later links the coca eradication programme to the weak economy, albeit blaming the

lack of alternative development programmes as opposed to coca eradication itself:

For a decade until 1999, the economy grew at a steady 4%, thanks to reforms and foreign investment. But progress has halted, partly because of the regional recession, and partly because the outgoing government eradicated 50,000 hectares (123,500 acres) of coca but was unable to provide enough proper alternatives.


The coca/cocaine distinction, which will be discussed in detail in chapter three, is all but

ignored by the Independent, which states that: ‘Bolivia […] is racked by rising crime and violent

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protests from farmers of coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine’ (Independent 1 July 2002: 11)

and, as pointed out at the beginning of this section, that Morales is ‘Bolivia’s pro-cocaine

Presidential candidate’ (Independent 5 July 2002: 12). These statements ignore the fact that the

synthetic drug cocaine is not the same thing as the coca leaf, which has a variety of uses and is

a significant part of Bolivian culture. Chapter three, which examines British coverage of the coca

leaf outwith the context of elections, will demonstrate that disregard for the distinction is not

confined to the Independent. Such disregard indicates that the logic of coloniality remains active

in the British press, delegitimizing Bolivian culture, religious practices, and worldviews.

A lost world

In keeping with Kevin Foster’s notion of Latin America as a lost world, the British coverage of

the 2002 election is often more concerned with the effect upon the UK and US than Bolivia

itself, particularly outside the two financial papers. The Times (12 July 2002: 16) describes

Morales coming second in the election as ‘Bolivia poll setback in the war on drugs’, a headline

which reflects US concerns and clearly presents the democratic will of the Bolivian people as of

secondary importance to the will of the US government. The Independent (5 July 2002: 12)

opens a report on the election by stating that ‘The level of popular support in Bolivia for a

presidential candidate who opposes American efforts to eradicate the coca crop from which

cocaine is produced has startled political analysts and angered Washington’. Both statements

are demonstrative of the failure of the British press to engage with Bolivia on any meaningful

level, and render the country little more than an obstacle to the US-led, but officially British-

backed, War on Drugs. Similarly, the Guardian frames the Bolivian election in terms of its

implications for the US, albeit in a manner that portrays the US in a more negative light:

Bolivia’s leftwing upstart alarms US: Washington threatens to cut aid if coca-growers’ leader becomes his country’s new president. The United States government is actively intervening in Bolivia’s choice of new president next month, warning that US aid will be withdrawn if socialist Evo Morales is appointed.

(Guardian 15 July 2002)

The use of the term ‘upstart’ to describe Morales blithely insinuates that US hegemony, though

problematic, is natural, and clearly locates Bolivians in the lower reaches of the global

hierarchy.

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To a certain extent, the preoccupation with the impact upon the US demonstrates the

extension of British anxiety concerning the decline of empire, the country’s current place in the

world, and in particular the complex and sometimes uneasy relationship between the UK and

the US. Britain, which once ruled over the US, now plays a subordinate role to the global

superpower and the British attitude toward US foreign policy is a mixture of genuine

disapproval, envy, and fulsome support. Britain’s role as an important ally to the US became

particularly controversial in the context of the post-September 11th war in Afghanistan, and later,

the war in Iraq. It would be over-stating one’s case to claim that all these aspects of the UK-US

relations can be drawn purely from the two relatively short passages quoted here, but as

contextual factors they go a long way to explaining the British press’s preoccupation with the

US. This tendency to frame Bolivian political developments in terms of the impact upon the US

becomes even more prominent in the coverage of the 2005 election, and consequently the

subtext will be discussed in more detail later.

The 2002 election in the Bolivian press

Situationality

The Bolivian coverage of the 2002 elections sees Morales described simply as a

candidate, as demonstrated by Table 2.3a. Thirty-nine of the ninety terms applied to Morales

situate him solely as a candidate, while Morales’s occupation follows closely behind having

been used thirty-two times. Generally, the Bolivian press keeps to purely descriptive terms, with

little added detail. The focus on Morales’s occupation is something the Bolivian press shares

with its UK counterpart, and is rather unsurprising given that the Bolivian public would know

Morales through his FCT leadership. Nevertheless, unlike the British press, the Bolivian does

not explicitly refer to Morales’s ethnicity, as noted earlier. This could suggest that the Bolivian

press feels less need to categorize candidates according to ethnicity than the British press, and

therefore it could be argued that the British focus on ethnicity reflects a continuing need to

categorize and thus objectify Latin Americans, while a lack of attention on the part of the

Bolivian press reflects the construction of Bolivia as a mestizo nation. However, it must be noted

that references to Morales’s humble background or education – which are more frequent in

relation to the 2005 election – may be regarded as coded references to ethnicity. In addition, the

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close association of coca and indigeneity mean that references to Morales’s occupation are also

allusions to ethnicity that draw upon the readers’ preconceptions of indigeneity. Conversely, the

lack of attention to ethnicity on the part of the Bolivian press may also be interpreted as

reflecting the wilful blindness of an industry led by, and catering for a mainly white elite to the

extent to which ethnicity accords social advantages and disadvantages.

Only once does the Bolivian press refer to Morales in terms of leftist ideology,

proportionately less often than the UK press. Of course, it could be argued that references to his

candidacy which include his party’s name or acronym are in themselves references to ideology.

However, such labels have not been classed as references to ideology since it cannot be taken

for granted that political party names are indicative of ideology – after all, the MIR, for example,

is no longer revolutionary, nor leftist.

TABLE 2.3A: DESCRIPTIONS OF EVO MORALES IN BOLIVIAN PRESS ARTICLES RELATING TO THE 2002

ELECTION

Total (Specific phrase) Total


Candidacy

39 el presidenciable por el MAS 5

el candidato del MAS 5

el candidato a la presidencia por el Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 3

el candidato a la presidencia por el MAS 3

el candidato presidencial del MAS 3

el candidato del Movimiento al Socialismo 2

candidato a la presidencia de la Republica por el Movimiento al Socialismo 2

el candidato 2

el candidato por el Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 2

candidato a la presidencia de la Republica por MAS 1

el presidenciable del MAS 1

candidato a la presidencia de la Republica por el Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 1

el candidato a la presidencia del MAS 1

el candidato presidencial del Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 1

el único candidato presidencial con regular crecimiento en la intención de voto 1

el candidato que ocupa el cuarto lugar en la intención del voto 1

el candidato a Presidente por el Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 1

el candidato por el MAS 1

el personaje central de la elección 1

la sorpresa en las encuestas 1

una de las llaves para abrir y cerrar puertas en el próximo gobierno 1

Coca 32 el dirigente cocalero 16

el líder cocalero 9

el cocalero 3

dirigente de la Federación del Trópico de Cochabamba desde 1988 2

el ex dirigente cocalero 1

el líder cocalero por el Movimiento al Socialismo 1

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Other

6 hombre de campo 2

catalizador de la rebeldía 1

el sindicalista 2

un renegado 1

Parliamentary career 5 nuevo parlamentario 2

diputado electo por el MAS 1

el entonces legislador 1

el diputado expulsado 1

Leadership

3 el dirigente campesino 1

el dirigente 1

el líder orureño 1

Coca and candidacy 2 el candidato presidencial y ex dirigente cocalero 1

el candidato del MAS y dirigente cocalero 1

Coca & political leadership

2 el dirigente cocalero y líder del Movimiento al Socialismo 1

el líder de los cocaleros y ex parlamentario por el Chapare de Cochabamba 1

Leftism 1 el político de izquierda 1

Morales the outsider

Despite not explicitly focusing on ethnicity, the Bolivian press does note that Morales

has strong support ‘en las regiones en las que existe fuerte influencia de las etnias quechua y

aimara’ (Correo del Sur 2 June 2002: Elige 7, Los Tiempos 2 June 2002: A4 and El Deber 2

June 2002: A19).7 Additionally, it casts him as something of an outsider – no doubt due to his

ethnicity as much as his radical politics. Correo del Sur (4 July 2002: 10), in an article

discussing the ‘sorpresivo ascenso’ of Morales and the MAS to second place, refers to the other

parties as ‘tradicionales’, automatically implying that Morales and the MAS are not part of the

Bolivian establishment. This impression of Morales as an outsider is reinforced later in the same

article:

La NFR, el MNR y el MAS consideran que hoy es el día “crítico” para definir el posicionamiento electoral final y en la eventualidad de que Morales logre el segundo puesto, los sistémicos estarían obligados a votar a ojos cerrados por

7 During the run up to elections and referenda, several Bolivian newspapers come together to form a network that

shares information, resulting in identical articles being published across a number of titles. Correo del Sur, Los Tiempos, and El Deber are all part of this network, along with several other titles that are not used in this study. Of course, this results in a certain uniformity of discourse across the Bolivian press in its coverage of the democratic process.

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Manfred Reyes Villa o Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, porque nadie entregará la presidencia al dirigente cocalero.

(Correo del Sur 4 July 2002: 10)

Not only does Correo del Sur make it clear that members of rival parties would vote for

anyone but Morales, it fails to suggest that this is anything other than perfectly ordinary, later

implying that Morales as president would destabilise the country and reduce the effectiveness of

the state: ‘[…] es seguro que el MNR o la NFR, reciban el voto instantáneo del MIR, ADN, y

UCS para dar gobernabilidad al país’ (Correo del Sur 4 July 2002: 10). Los Tiempos (4 July

2002: Elige 1) carries similar sentiments, noting that ‘El MAS empezó a asomarse al segundo

puesto de la preferencia electoral, lo que obligó a los considerados partidos tradicionales a

suspender los contactos destinados a dar gobernabilidad al próximo gobierno’, though it does

include a statement from Morales which establishes that governability is not his priority: ‘“El

término gobernabilidad es sinónimo de perversión” [Morales] afirmó’.

Los Tiempos, as indicated in Table 2.3a, refers to Morales as ‘un renegado’ and the

‘catalizador de la rebeldía’, suggesting that his is but a niche vote: ‘[…] los cocaleros […] son un

enclave electoral gracias a la Ley 1008 […] el vivir al filo de ilegalidad no los margina, les da

viabilidad (Los Tiempos 4 June 2002: Elige 5). El Diario, meanwhile, concludes that a vote for

Morales is nothing more than a protest vote:

Descontento social se convirtió en votos para Evo y el "Mallku"’. Los bloqueos y las violentas manifestaciones sociales, repudiadas en su momento por una parte de la población, y que fueron encabezados por Evo Morales y Felipe Quispe, se convirtieron en votos para ambos nuevos parlamentarios.

(El Diario 1 July 2002: Cuerpo I 4)



the Bolivian coverage of the 2002 election. Evo Morales is the most commonly quoted source,

with 122 instances of discourse representation, or 43.57 per cent of all represented discourse.

Political analysts are the second most commonly cited sources, with 42 instances, or 15 per

cent of the total. These analysts are all Bolivian, contributing to a key contrast with the coverage

of the British press, which favours non-Bolivian analysts and consultants in its coverage of

Bolivian politics. The other presidential candidates and political party officials amount to a

relatively small proportion of the represented discourse, though their low frequency vis-à-vis that

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of Morales is at least partially due to the selection bias discussed earlier. Despite this selection

bias skewing the data in favour of Morales as opposed to other political actors, the discourse

representation figures conclusively demonstrate that non-Bolivians are rarely quoted by the

Bolivian press on matters relating to Bolivian politics. Indeed, the one non-Bolivian person

featured, the then-US ambassador Manuel Rocha, is quoted precisely because of the

controversial nature of his statements, having publicly declared that US aid to and trade

agreements with Bolivia would be jeopardized should the electorate vote for ‘los que quieren

que Bolivia vuelve a ser un exportador de cocaína importante’ (El Mundo 27 June 2002: 11).

The US State Department is the only non-Bolivian institution that features, and its statements

are closely connected to those of Rocha. Nevertheless, the low rate of non-Bolivian discourse

representation is an important contrast to the high ratio of non-Bolivian discourse representation

found within the British press. Though, as noted earlier, the British press no longer treats

Bolivians as the silent objects that appeared in nineteenth century travel writing, it is interesting

that the British press turns to European or US-based analysts rather than domestic analysts for

detailed assessments of events in Bolivia. While to a certain extent convenience may be a

factor – the British articles are often not filed from Bolivia – it suggests that the logic of

coloniality remains in operation and European perspectives continue to take precedence over

local perspectives.

Boundary maintenance is relatively uniform across all six Bolivian papers and cited

sources, with 159 instances of represented discourse, or 56.79 per cent, rendered ID,

demonstrating that the Bolivian press readily absorbs and incorporates the discourse of all

political candidates. The Bolivian newspaper articles used throughout this thesis are replete with

represented discourse with little additional detail, as will also be shown in chapters three and

four. The sheer volume of represented discourse combined with low boundary maintenance

means that, particularly in the case of Morales, the candidates and parties are able to determine

their own public image almost unchallenged.

TABLE 2.4A: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BOLIVIAN PRESS ARTICLES RELATING TO THE 2002

ELECTION


Evo Morales (MAS) 42 23 54 3 122

Other MAS officials 1 2 16 0 19

Manfred Reyes Villa (NFR) 1 2 1 0 4

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Other NFR officials 1 2 2 0 5

Other MNR officials 2 2 8 0 12

Jaime Paz Zamora (MIR) 1 0 2 0 3

MIR officials 0 1 5 0 6

Jorge Quiroga 0 1 0 0 1

Ronald MacLean (ADN) 0 0 2 0 2

UCS officials 0 0 3 1 4

All political parties 0 2 4 0 6

Bolivian political analysts 7 10 24 1 42

Polls 0 0 16 3 19


US State Department 2 3 7 1 13

Corte Nacional Electoral (CNE) officials 0 1 3 0 4

La Tercera (Chilean newspaper) 0 0 1 1 2

Total 58 50 159 13 280

Left/right dichotomy

The Bolivian press, unlike its British counterpart, does not tend to present the 2002

election as a polarized contest between the left and right. It appears that the Bolivian press

assumes familiarity on the part of the reader by referring to candidates with reference to their

party as opposed to ideological positions, as demonstrated by the frequency of terms such as

‘el candidato del MAS’ versus that of ‘el político de izquierda’ in Table 2.4a. Presumably the

Bolivian press expects the reader to know what each party generally represents, as the UK

press does not need to continuously explain what Labour or the Conservatives represent. As a

result, there is less need for the Bolivian press to use terms such as left-wing, right-wing,

populist, and so forth, reducing the chances of creating a sense of a polarized left versus right

contest. However, it is worth pointing out that for the most part the Bolivian press draws a more

complex picture than the British press. This is often achieved through secondary discourse,

such as one instance where Morales indicates his support is drawn from a wider group than just

the left: ‘El candidato presidencial del MAS asegura que izquierdistas, organizaciones,

militantes de otros partidos y gente de DD.HH. lo apoyan’ (La Razón 25 June 2002: B6).

Furthermore, there are no attempts made by the Bolivian press to present Morales’s increased

popularity as evidence of a regional drift to the left, nor in fact are there any references at all to

the politics of any of Bolivia’s neighbours within the coverage of the 2002 election. This

continues in the coverage of the 2005 and 2009 elections, suggesting that for the Bolivian press

elections are very much a domestic issue, and also that the Bolivian press sees little need to

present Latin American as a homogenous mass to which easily identifiable trends may be

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attributed. It would appear that the notion of a ‘Latin’ identity is rather limited in the eyes of Latin

Americans themselves.

The 2005 election

Sánchez de Lozada’s second term in office proved to be short-lived. He left office, and

the country, in October 2003 after a series of protests known as the Guerra del Gas, discussed

in more detail in chapter four. The vice-president, Carlos Mesa, took his place until resigning in

June 2005 after another series of protests, also discussed in chapter four. The president of the

Corte Suprema de Justicia, Eduardo Rodríguez Veltzé, was appointed interim president until

the election in December of that year. The MAS and Morales won a landslide victory, obtaining

an outright majority with 53.74 per cent of the vote, while their nearest rivals, PODEMOS, took

28.59 per cent (Corte Nacional Electoral 2005: 2). It was the first time since the return to

democracy in 1982 that a candidate and their party had won an outright majority, thereby

avoiding the need for a congressional run-off vote (Harten 2011: 6). Not only did the margin of

victory strengthen Morales and the MAS’s legitimacy, it also strengthened their effectiveness,

since it allowed Morales the luxury of appointing MAS members to public office rather than

exchanging jobs for run-off votes from other parties as has been the case in the past. In

addition, the election made Morales Bolivia’s first indigenous president.


Situationality

While the word candidate was scarcely used in the UK coverage of the 2002 election,

the terms candidate and president are the most commonly used descriptions for Morales within

the British coverage of the 2005 election, as per Table 2.5a. In this respect, there is a greater

similarity between the UK press and Bolivian press than was the case with the earlier election,

since the latter’s coverage also describes Morales primarily in terms of his presidency and

candidacy. A quarter of the descriptions used by the UK press focus solely on his presidency or

candidacy, a decrease in the use of qualitative situationality devices. Descriptions that focus on

both Morales’s presidency and ethnicity – that is, ‘the first indigenous president’ or some

variation thereof – is the second most frequent set of labels along with labels that identify

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Morales as a coca farmer. Though, as noted earlier, references to Morales’s candidacy are

more frequent than was the case in 2002, Morales’s occupation and ethnicity remain important

defining characteristics in the eyes of the British press. This suggests that Morales’s ethnicity

remains a mark of exoticism that allows him to be drawn as the Other, though repeated

references to the presidency ascribe a great deal of legitimacy. Ideology also remains important

to the UK press, with references to socialism or leftism spread across several categories in the

table below.

TABLE 2.5A: DESCRIPTIONS OF EVO MORALES IN BRITISH PRESS ARTICLES RELATING TO THE 2005

ELECTION



Presidency/candidacy 36 president 9

new president 6

Bolivian president 4

Bolivian leader 2

president of Bolivia 2

the new president 2

the country's new president 1

Bolivia's victor 1

president-elect of Bolivia 1

the presidential candidate of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party 1

favourite to win Sunday's election 1

leader 1

president-elect 1

president of Latin America's poorest population and its second-largest reserves of natural gas 1

who will become his country's president on January 22nd 1

the fourth president of his unstable country in three years 1

Bolivia's president 1

Presidency & ethnicity

16 first indigenous president 3

Bolivia's first indigenous president 2

the first Indian to hold the country's highest office 1

first indigenous Indian president 1

Bolivia's first indigenous Indian president 1

first indigenous president of the impoverished country 1

first native American president in his country's history 1

the first serious indigenous candidate 1

Bolivia's first Indian president 1

the first full-blooded indigenous president in Latin America 1

indigenous candidate 1

first wholly indigenous president in Latin America in modern times 1

Bolivia's first president to proclaim his indigenous origins 1

Coca 16 former coca farmer 5

a union boss for the coca growers 1

a passionate campaigner for the legalisation of coca-leaf production 1

as eloquent a defender of the rights of the cocaleros as one could expect from a man who came to prominence as their spokesman 1

leader of the coca growers union 1

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a leader of the growers of coca 1

former head of a coca growers' union 1

leader of coca farmers 1

coca grower 1

coca growers leader 1

the leader of Bolivia's coca farmers 1

former coca growers' leader 1

Ethnicity

13 an Aymara Indian 7

from the downtrodden Indian majority 1

an indigenous Aymara Indian 1

a native American 1

an Aymara Indian who herded llamas as a boy 1

an uneducated Indian 1

native Aymara 1

Leftism/radicalism/nationalism 8 the socialist candidate 1

socialist 1

leftist leader 1

a socialist 1

an ultra-nationalist 1

the spokesman for the country's powerful socialist and nationalist current 1

radical leader 1

a champion of state control of the economy 1

Allies

5 Castro ally 1

a close friend of both Washington's most outspoken regional critics, Fidel Castro of Cuba and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez 1

close to President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Fidel Castro of Cuba 1

a close friend of Hugo Chavez 1

an admirer of Cuba's Fidel Castro 1

Latin American left 5

the latest in a series of left-wing, anti-American elected leaders loosening South America from Washington's grasp 1

latest in a string of leftists 1

latest left-wing president 1

part of a trend across Latin America that has seen left-leaning governments emerge 1

more like the Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a moderate in radical clothing [than Chavez] 1

Ethnicity & leadership

4 an indigenous Aymara leader 1

popular indigenous leader 1

46-year-old Aymara leader 1

Bolivia's first elected indigenous leader 1

Coca & leftism/radicalism 4 radical former coca farmer 1

coca farmer turned saviour of the left 1

iconoclastic leftwing coca farmer 1

radical former coca growers' leader 1

Support for/from the poor

4 a man of the people 1

[the Bolivian poor's] champion 1

Bolivia's candidate of the poor 1

the peasant's president 1

Campaign for indigenous rights 3 a champion of indigenous rights 2

Indian's champion 1

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Coca & ethnicity

3 indigenous coca advocate 1 coca workers' leader of Aymara Indian descent 1 leader of Quechua coca growers 1

Trade unionism 3 a 46-year-old trade unionist 1

leading trade unionist 1

trade union leader 1

Coca & MAS leadership

2

a former coca farmer and union leader turned leader of the Movement to Socialism 1

the coca growers leader who heads the radical Movement to Socialism 1

Large majority 2

the first president [to obtain over 50% of the vote] since Bolivian returned to democracy in 1982 1

the first [president] since democracy was restored to have won an absolute majority 1

Populism

2 a populist, indigenous alternative 1

Bolivia's populist president 1

Criticism of US 1 an outspoken critic of the US 1

Other

18 political street fighter 2

a boy from a poor village who spent his adolescence playing the trumpet in bars 1

a former llama herder 1

hero 1

the ultimate anti-politician politician 1

a beneficiary of his people's rising assertiveness 1

a handsome man with a mop of black hair 1

an assured speaker 1

[before a crowd] warm and likeable 1

charismatic figure 1

a bachelor with a taste for the simple life 1

most visible leader of the radical social movements that toppled two presidents in two years 1

the man in the stripey jumper 1

not just a fashion victim 1

charismatic 1

popular for his sheer ordinariness 1

[MAS's] leader 1

Framing of the election

Morales’s ethnicity is more central to the British coverage than to the Bolivian coverage.

As will be noted later in this section, immediately after the 2005 election the Bolivian press

framed the result by emphasizing the margin of victory rather than the fact that he would

become Bolivia’s first indigenous president. In contrast, the UK press focuses almost exclusively

on the latter. A Guardian headline shortly before the election reads ‘Coca farmer turned saviour

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of the left promises wind of change in Bolivia: Barring mishap, Evo Morales could soon become

Latin America’s first wholly indigenous leader’ (Guardian 8 December 2005), while the

Independent informs its readers that ‘Thirty-eight years after the revolutionary [Che Guevara]

perished in the Bolivian foothills, Evo Morales is poised to become the first indigenous president

of the impoverished country which has been run by politicians of European descent since

independence in 1825’ (Independent 16 December 2005: 24). This continues after the election.

A Daily Telegraph article opens by stating that ‘Bolivia has elected its first indigenous Indian

president, leaving its relations with America at a historic low and Washington’s war on drugs in

the region in jeopardy’ (Daily Telegraph 20 December 2008: 15), while The Times notes that

‘For the first time since the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors 500 years ago, Bolivia has a

leader that comes from the country’s Indian majority’ (The Times 23 January 2006: 33). The

Financial Times also give primacy to Morales’s ethnicity: ‘There will be nothing typical about the

ceremonies taking place to inaugurate Evo Morales, the iconoclastic leftwing coca farmer, who

becomes Bolivia’s first indigenous president this weekend’ (Financial Times 21 January 2006:

11).

Given that the attention paid to ethnicity by the UK press in its coverage of the 2005

election is mirrored in the coverage of the 2002 election, it would appear that the British view of

Latin Americans is consistently rooted in the European tradition of categorizing and classifying

along racial lines. This is not say that Morales’s ethnicity is not worth mentioning. On the

contrary, to ignore the significance of the election of the first indigenous president of Bolivia is to

ignore the very real discrimination faced by indigenous Bolivians. Nevertheless, focusing solely

on ethnicity can ultimately be reductive, and all the British papers bar the Economist are at risk

of this, with a least a quarter of each of the other papers’ descriptions making some reference to

ethnicity. Of course, commercial considerations may have a role to play. Headlines or articles

that refer to the ‘first indigenous president’ may simply be more eye-catching for a British

audience than those that refer to an outright majority, however uncommon an outright majority

may be.

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The focus on Morales’s ethnicity is once more accompanied by a subtle

characterization of Bolivians as being guided by emotions and passion, rather than

dispassionate, rational analysis. The Financial Times helps spread the idea that Morales’s plans

are irrational: ‘John Danilovich, head of the US Millennium Challenge Corporation […] said it

was not clear how Mr Morales would proceed once he faced ‘economic reality’ (Financial Times

24 January 2006: 10). The Economist implies that Morales’s popularity stems from a lack of

patience and unrealistic expectations:

He has benefited from frustration at the slow pace of economic growth in the poorest republic of Latin America, and the discredit of its traditional political parties […] The fourth and biggest challenge for Mr Morales will be to control his own political base and its utopian expectations

(Economist 24 December 2005)

After drawing upon stereotypes of a disordered world, the weekly implies that Morales is wilfully

obstreperous:

The man about to inherit the problems of a chaotic, dirt-poor country of fewer than 9m people in the Andes boasts that he is the “worst nightmare” of the United States […] For two years Mr Morales has done his best to upset South America’s established order.

(Economist 21 January 2006)

However, the same piece later paints a more sympathetic picture: ‘the new president shows an

appreciation for the realities of power […] for now he deserves the benefit of the doubt’

(Economist 21 January 2006).

The Daily Telegraph also states that Morales’s popularity is fuelled by unrealistic

expectations: ‘Bolivians holding out for a hero at election […] Expectations are high and

perhaps impossible to fulfil, whoever wins’ (Daily Telegraph 19 December 2005: 15). An

expositional item in the same paper, written by the Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan, is worth

particular attention.8 It lays bare the indigenous internalization of the colonial gaze, yet is so

imbued with the same colonial gaze as to at times read as a parody. Hannan suggests that

today’s indigenous Bolivians are getting ideas above their station, opening his piece with:

‘Bolshie people, the Bolivians: never afraid to thumb their noses at the powerful’ (Daily

Telegraph 21 December 2005). He follows this with an anecdote in which Queen Victoria, angry

8 Readers will note that Hannan is the only journalist referred to by name in the thesis. This is solely due to the inclusion

of autobiographical details, referred to in this section, that warranted the identification of the author.

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with the Bolivian president for having publicly humiliated the British ambassador, orders that a

gunboat be sent to Bolivia. Upon learning that Bolivia has no coastline, she decreed that

cartographers remove it from the map, as if by excluding it from British maps the country would

simply cease to exist. Hannan suggests that for Britons, Bolivia has since been such an

irrelevance that it may as well have not existed, until it snapped back into being with the election

of Morales: ‘Yesterday, Bolivians forced themselves back onto the map in the rudest possible

way. Their new president, Evo Morales, promises that he will be “Washington’s nightmare”’

(Daily Telegraph 21 December 2005). This indicates that Britons are entitled to ignore Bolivia,

and Bolivians, by exercising their democratic rights in a way that catches the attention of the

British, are being incredibly cheeky.

Hannan’s article exhibits an astonishingly patronising, albeit sympathetic, view of Latin

Americans, and in particular the Andean region’s indigenous people. The son of a diplomat,

Hannan grew up in Peru and notes that he used to wonder why indigenous Peruvians were not

‘as industrious and enterprising as the Japanese’ (Daily Telegraph 21 December 2005), citing

the ‘old rogue’, ex-president Alberto Fujimori as an example of how indigenous Latin Americans

and Japanese people look like each other, and therefore should act like each other. He

describes his household’s cook as having ‘a good old face’, and states that after the fall of most

of the region’s military governments during the 1980s, South Americans ‘[…] did their best to

behave responsibly, denationalising their economies and paying off their debts’ (Daily

Telegraph 21 December 2005). Not only does the second of those quotes lay bare a pro-free

market bias – in and of itself innocuous enough – but it also treats Latin Americans as children

whose behaviour is naturally subject to European approval. He censures Latin Americans for a

lack of patience, suggesting that they are irrational and ruled by emotions rather than

pragmatism: ‘When this failed to bring instant prosperity, disenchantment set in’ (Daily

Telegraph 21 December 2005).

However, Hannan also explains that the poverty and low social standing of indigenous

Latin Americans, while caused largely by discrimination, was exacerbated by the locals’

internalization of the European gaze – and Creole – gaze. In answer to his own question as to

why autochthonous Latin Americans are not more like the Japanese, he writes:

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Looking back, I think I have the explanation. They had it knocked out of them. From the day they went to school, they were taught that culture had begun with the Conquest: that Spaniards had brought them science, religion and a civilized language. As late as the 1970s, our cook was too ashamed to admit that she could speak Quechua as well as Spanish. I shall never forget the expression on her good old face – embarrassment mingled with delight – the day I came home singing a Quechua song that I had picked up at school.

(Daily Telegraph 21 December 2005)

He also notes that:

In the Peru of my boyhood, it was taken for granted that the Indians would never amount to much. They were often referred to, even by liberal-minded people, as cholos, a nasty racial epithet. They were seen as sullen and dull, loyal enough if properly treated, but incapable of initiative. This pessimism infected their self-image.


While it is unlikely that all indigenous Bolivians thought of themselves as stupid simply as a

result of taking the European gaze as fact, it is reasonable to assume that the European gaze

engendered a lack of aspiration insofar as indigenous Bolivians knew that the pursuit of those

aspirations was futile in the face of widespread racism.

It was noted that the Guardian’s coverage of the 2002 election objectified indigenous

Bolivians, rendering them nameless, silent, exotic objects of the European gaze, as did

nineteenth- and early twentieth-century travel writing. An article that seeks to contextualise the

2005 election gives named indigenous Bolivians a voice, yet still subjects them to the European

gaze by using an indigenous woman’s clothing as a signifier of her ethnicity:

Maria Mammani, 54, a mother of six, sat on a bench outside the Senkata school. An Aymara woman, wearing a black bowler hat, white shawl, and a colourful, multi-layered skirt, she said her son picked up a dead child from the street the day Bolivian soldiers fired on neighbours. “Evo defends the poor. The other politicians are like past presidents, they are corrupt and will sell out this country”. Ariel Herrera, a 19-year-old carpenter and night school student, is voting for “Evo”. “For the first time, one of us, an indigenous, someone who is from the poor class, will be president,” he said.

(Guardian 19 December 2005)

While in recent years indigenous urban Bolivians, particularly women, have reclaimed

ostensibly traditional dress as a mark of pride, Mammani’s clothing seems irrelevant to the

matter at hand, and would appear to be included purely to provide some local colour.9 It would

9 So-called ‘traditional’ Andean clothing is in fact a prime example of transculturation, a fusion of indigenous and

European styles. Local people took some of the fashions worn by the Spanish and later Creole elite and adapted them to their own existing style. The emblematic bowler hats were first imported from Britain in the 1920s for railway construction workers. Apparently too small for the European employees, the hats were given to the local Aymara population and eventually became associated almost exclusively with Aymara dress (Minahan 2013: 46-47).

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suggest that the Guardian seeks to entertain as much as inform. It is worth pointing out again

that the Guardian objectifies women in particular, and provides no details of Herrera’s clohing.

A similar attempt to provide some local colour in the opening paragraph of an article in

the Independent renders La Paz something of a warzone, recalling the chaotic, violent

landscapes of adventure fiction set in Latin America:

The red carpet shines like blood in the intense heat of a La Paz summer afternoon. It marks the path of a marching band in colonial uniform, cutting a swath down and across Plaza Murilla [sic], the capital’s main square. The toy soldiers in their Spanish-era coats pass in front of the fresh bullet-holes pock-marking the Council headquarters and march on to the decorative façade of the National Congress. They are flanked by colleagues in combat fatigues bearing tear-gas rifles, a reminder of the unrest that threatens to engulf Bolivia.

(Independent 16 December 2005: 24)

An article appearing in The Times also opens with some local colour. It draws a far

more tranquil picture than the Independent, yet echoes the Guardian’s use of clothing as a

signifier of difference:

At first sight, revolution Bolivia style looks like a large village fete. Indian women in their distinctive bowler hats and shawls sit around Plaza Villaroel [sic] in La Paz, eating potatoes cooked over charcoal braziers. Teenagers head for the stage to watch local bands. Men chat and chew coca leaves together. Every so often another group of revellers arrives, some led in by Andean flute players. Appearances are deceptive. The reason for the gathering is to “bury neoliberalism and end the robbery of our country”, says Evo Morales, the man the crowd has come to see.

(The Times 16 December 2005: 45)

Nevertheless, the rest of the excerpt, ‘revolution Bolivia style’ aside, is a departure from the

tendency to reduce Latin America to an eternally chaotic, violent place. On the contrary, the

piece emphasizes the sheer ordinariness of the scene, particularly through comparison to a

typical English village fete. The article goes on to describe Morales’s clothing, yet even that is

portrayed as ordinary: ‘He wears jeans and trainers, a poncho over one of his ever-present

fleeces, looking as if he had just clambered out of the audience’ (The Times 16 December

2005: 45). Yet a few days later, the same paper uses that ordinariness as a marker of difference

in a short piece, quoted here in full, which trivializes Morales by reducing him to a single-issue

president in overly casual clothing. It equates indigeneity with confrontation, using the threat of

Otherness to evoke an image of Latin Americans as inherently combative:

Evo Morales, President-elect of Bolivia, is to be inaugurated on Sunday. But what will he wear? His alpaca jumper has graced the election campaign and

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nearly all meetings with foreign leaders, even in sweltering South Africa, during a whirlwind tour to introduce himself and, doubtless, his enthusiasm for coca production. There’s a fierce debate in the South American media about whether he should be sworn in wearing a suit (provocatively Yankee) or poncho (proudly native) to signal conciliation or confrontation.

(The Times 19 January 2006: 23)

On the other hand, Morales’s casual style has been a key factor in his ability to

persuade a large proportion of the public that he was one of them, and consequently comments

about his clothing are not unwarranted. In addition, it is little different to the scrutiny of female

politicians’ clothing choices that is so common both in the UK and Latin America, and in many

ways it is somewhat refreshing to see such comments directed toward a male president.

The Financial Times tells its readers that ‘[…] without any formal education and with a

poor grasp of the details of policymaking, Mr Morales’s most immediate task will be to surround

himself with technical experts who can formulate a plan for government’ (Financial Times 16

January 2006: 34). The article, which offers no evidence for Morales’s ‘poor grasp of

policymaking’ other than a lack of formal education, plays on long-established assumptions

regarding uneducated or unintelligent indigenous Latin Americans. Morales’s lack of education

is rather overblown. Though his primary education was disrupted due to language barriers when

the Aymara-speaking Morales family moved to Argentina for a few years, Morales completed

secondary school (Sivak 2008: 53-59). The notion that Morales should surround himself with

technocrats is based upon a worldview that privileges specialist organizations such as the IMF,

suggests that Morales must be helped by those who know better, and ignores the fact that, until

relatively recently, it was not uncommon for political leaders elsewhere to not have a university

education.10

The focus on Morales’s ethnicity also implies that he would be a president for all, or at

least a president for all Bolivia’s indigenous people. However, the UK press refers only to

Aymaras and Quechuas, obscuring the existence of Bolivia’s other indigenous ethnic groups

such as the Guaraní and Chiquitano, each with their own customs and identities. This betrays

an assumption that all of Bolivia’s non-white people are the same, and represents an

oversimplification of indigenous identities in Bolivia. Morales and the MAS have been accused

10

For example, both the former Prime minister of Britain, John Major, and the ex-Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown left school without A-Levels.

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by some members of lowland indigenous groups of privileging Aymara and Quechua culture as

the authentic culture of Bolivia, effectively replacing a white hegemony with another ethnic

hegemony (Postero 2010: 27). Consequently, the UK coverage of the 2005 election could be

regarded as problematic in this respect. Yet it should be pointed out that the Bolivian coverage

of the 2005 election, as will be discussed below, also oversimplifies Bolivia’s indigenous

identities by disseminating the idea that Morales is a president for all, largely coinciding with

Morales’s own discourse. Therefore, however problematic it may be, it is rather unrealistic to

expect the UK press to account for the complex nature of ethnic identities in Bolivia if even the

local press does not do so.



the British coverage of Bolivia’s 2005 election, much more than the 2002 election. In sharp

contrast to the 2002 election coverage, in which European/US analysts were the most

commonly cited sources of information, Evo Morales is the most frequently quoted actor, with 75

instances of discourse representation – exactly half of the total. Moreover, Morales is the most

frequently quoted by each of the six British newspapers that form this part of the corpus. The

Bolivian public are the second most frequently quoted figures, albeit with a much lower figure of

18 total instances of discourse representation. European and US analysts and officials form just

a tiny proportion of discourse representation, meaning that Bolivians are no longer the silent

objects of the European gaze that featured in nineteenth-century travel writing. Furthermore,

boundary maintenance is relatively similar with respect to both Bolivian and European/US

actors, with roughly half of the instances of discourse representation for both sets of sources

rendered as ID. These discourse representation and boundary maintenance figures indicate an

increased willingness on the part of the UK press to incorporate the discourse of local political

actors and constitute a significant departure from the coverage of the earlier election. This

corresponds somewhat with Pratt’s notion of transculturation as a bidirectional phenomenon,

insofar as the increased domestic visibility of indigenous Bolivians coincides with increased

willingness by the UK press to give a voice to Bolivians. It also appears to represent a lessening

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of the logic of coloniality, since an increased willingness to quote Bolivian actors suggests an

increased willingness to engage with, or at least recognise the legitimacy of, Bolivian ideas.


ELECTION



MAS officials 4 3 6 0 13

Bolivian analysts 7 1 4 0 12




European/US officials 2 2 5 0 9

Officials of other Latin American states 1 2 1 0 4

International Energy 1 0 3 0 4

MAS critics 0 1 1 0 2

Jorge ‘Tuto’ Quiroga 2 0 0 0 2

Podemos officials 1 0 4 0 5

Total 61 31 59 0 150


The 2005 election in particular sees the notion of a Latin American left-turn, or ‘pink tide’

take hold in the British press. This narrative sees the election of Morales framed as part of a

broader regional swing to the left, and groups him together with Hugo Chávez in Venezuela,

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil, and Néstor Kirchner in Argentina. The Guardian claims that

‘Bolivia has joined the growing number of leftwing governments in Latin America that reject US

domination’ (Guardian 20 December 2005), though a second article on the same day allows for

a less simplistic narrative: ‘Mr Morales is part of a trend across Latin America that has seen left-

leaning governments emerge. Although each leader has pursued distinct policies, they all reject

US hegemony in the region’ (Guardian 20 December 2005). The Independent also situates

Morales’s imminent election within the left-turn narrative, though the paper immediately goes on

to equate leftism in Latin America with being anti-US: ‘Bolivia is poised to join Venezuela, Brazil,

Chile, Uruguay and possibly even Mexico next year in an extraordinary rebirth of the Latin

American left. Such is the anti-American mood among Bolivians that a warning from the US

embassy backfired’ (Independent 16 December 2005: 24). The paper repeats this

representation shortly after the election takes place: ‘Mr Morales, an outspoken critic of the US,

represents a definite political shift and adds to other Latin American nations, such as Brazil and

Venezuela, which have in recent years elected leftist leaders – often in opposition to

Washington-backed opponents’ (Independent 20 December 2005: 22). The Times also

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identifies a left-turn: ‘He [Morales] becomes the latest left-wing president in a continent where

discontent at the failure of traditional parties to tackle poverty and inequality has resulted in a

sharp swing to the left in recent years’ (The Times 23 January 2006: 33). It is interesting to note

that The Times identifies discontent at the failure to tackle poverty and inequality as the main

cause of a swing to the left rather than the failure to tackle poverty and inequality itself,

suggesting that Latin American electoral choices are governed by emotions, not the

performance of incumbent governments. The Daily Telegraph also creates a left-turn narrative,

which it equates with anti-Americanism: ‘Mr Morales is the latest in a series of Left-wing, anti-

American elected leaders loosening South America from Washington’s grasp. He is friends with

Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro, whose policy is largely defined by its anti-

Americanism’ (Daily Telegraph 20 December 2005: 15), and ‘Evo Morales, a former llama

herder and coca farmer, was sworn in yesterday as Bolivia’s first indigenous Indian president,

the latest in a string of Leftists sweeping to power across Latin America in a backlash against

US-backed free-market policies’ (Daily Telegraph 23 January 2006). The Daniel Hannan article

discussed at length earlier in this section also identifies a regional trend, with Hannan making it

abundantly clear which side is right in more than one sense of the word:

His [Morales’s] election cannot be dismissed as a freak event. In recent years, most South American states have voted for Left-wing populists of various stripes: Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Chile. Even Uruguay, the squarest and most bourgeois country in the region, has joined the bad boys […] An ugly regional trend is under way [sic].


The narrative allows for little nuance or differentiation between the various countries,

the sole subtlety a division between moderate leftists such as Lula, or the more radical Chávez.

The Financial Times and the Economist identify Lula as the good, pragmatic leftist, and Chávez

as an extremist demagogue:

In many ways, Mr Morales resembles Venezuela’s radical president, Hugo Chávez, who has been using his country’s oil wealth to build influence among his neighbours […] but hamstrung by inexperience and a lack of technical knowhow, Mr Morales could turn out to be more pragmatic, more like Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva than Mr Chávez.

(Financial Times 21 January 2006: 11)

and

Unlike Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Uruguay’s Tabare Vazquez, Mr Morales is not a leftist who has made peace with democracy and capitalism,

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offering change without upheaval [… Morales] flaunts his relationship with Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s rabidly anti-American president.


and

Although his election has been seen as part of a broader swing to the left in Latin America, the region in fact has two sharply differing lefts. One is made up of radical anti-American populists, epitomised by Mr Chávez. The other is social-democratic and economically responsible. This one includes Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Michelle Bachelet […]


The left-turn narrative, insofar as it ignores the very specific circumstances in each

country, is illustrative of the British press’s view of Latin America as a homogenous mass to

which easily identifiable trends can be applied. The demarcation between the ‘good’ and ‘bad’

leftists is evidence of the vestiges of the civilizing discourse, and its modern equivalent in the

rhetoric of development. That is, underlying the division of Latin America’s pink tide into those

who are, in British eyes at least, ‘good’ and ‘bad’, is a sense of European superiority, a sense

that Europeans know better than Latin Americans what is best for Latin America. This recalls

the attitude of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century travel writers, particularly Duguid’s

comments regarding the British influence that made Argentina more ‘civilized’ than its

neighbours. Of course, this is not to state that any discussion of regional trends whatsoever is

tantamount to reproducing the logic of coloniality. After all, some of the regions leaders have

been quite eager to portray themselves as allies, and Chávez, when alive, was quick to position

himself as the leader of a Latin American alliance. Nevertheless, the left-turn narrative, in its

haste to identify two clealy demarcated blocs, lacks nuance insofar as it obscures the

complexity of each country’s domestic concerns. Moreover, it suggests that intra-Latin America

relations are characterized by a set of unchanging alliances rather than a set of fluid

relationships that spring from expediency as much as ideology.

A lost world

Much attention is paid to Morales’s occupation, his vows to stop the coca eradication

programme, and in particular the impact this will have on Bolivian-US relations. It was noted

earlier that many attempts to portray Morales’s election as part of a regional leftward shift are

accompanied by a characterization of leftism as anti-Americanism. Often, the coverage of the

2005 election seems to be more concerned with the effect that Morales’s victory will have on the

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US than on Bolivia itself. The Guardian claims that ‘Mr Morales’ victory is a blow to the US

agenda for the country and the region’ (Guardian 20 December 2005) and notes that Morales

‘has alarmed the US’ (Guardian 23 January 2006). Similarly, the Daily Telegraph brands

Morales’s election a ‘Blow to Washington’s war on cocaine’, while the Financial Times writes

that:

[…Morales’s] pledge to end US-sponsored coca eradication and reverse free-market reforms will not be welcomed in Washington […] While Washington had formerly refused to deal directly with Mr Morales, it now shows signs of being willing to do business […] The US is hoping that Mr Morales, whose political instinct is more moderate than many of his followers, will be prepared to do a deal that could limit the damage from what it views as the more unsavoury elements of his plan.

(Financial Times 16 January 2006: 34)

A later article reflects US concerns to the extent that Bolivia seems like nothing more

than a colony of the US: ‘Mr Morales, a former coca growers’ leader, has caused consternation

in Washington by vowing to decriminalise the cultivation of the crop, a traditional stimulant that

is also the raw material for cocaine’ (Financial Times 24 January 2006: 10).

By framing Morales’s election as a threat to US interests the British press is showing

itself to be more concerned with how the election affects the US than how it affects Bolivia. This

is redolent of Kevin Foster’s notion of Latin America as a lost world, in which British treatment of

Latin America is less about Latin America than Britain itself. Of course, the US is not the UK.

Yet, as a major ally of the US, the UK shares a number of geopolitical concerns with that

country. The UK takes a similarly prohibitionist approach to cocaine as the US, though anti-

drugs strategies are not couched in militarized terms to the extent they are in the US.

Consequently, the fact that British coverage of Latin America is as much about the US

demonstrates not only the two countries’ shared ideologies and perspectives, but also just how

much the interests of its own former colony direct Britain’s view of Latin America.

Furthermore, it is also an example of anti-conquest rhetoric and the colonial difference,

insofar as much of the coverage portrays US involvement in Bolivia as less than benign. While

the UK press is quick to draw attention to the US role in Bolivia’s drugs policy, little attention is

drawn to the role of British investors and British-based companies in Bolivia’s hydrocarbons

industry. For example, though the Financial Times points out that ‘Foreign investors will be

nervous about the appointment of Andres Soliz Rada, a lawyer, columnist and former politician,

98

as hydrocarbons minister’ (Financial Times 24 January 2006: 10), it fails to mention the fact that

these investors include Britons, and British-based companies such as BG. Effectively, the

British press helps to advance British capitalist interests whilst condemning the informal empire

of the global superpower, much as the early travel writers portrayed the Spanish empire as

barbaric. The UK’s involvement in the global drugs trade is similarly obscured by the Guardian,

which implies that US citizens are the only consumers of cocaine: ‘Yet, as a major grower of

coca, the raw material of the cocaine so beloved by US citizens, Bolivia is inevitably affected by

decisions taken beyond its borders’ (Guardian 20 December 2005).

The Economist is extremely critical of the War on Drugs and to a certain extent employs

anti-conquest rhetoric:

But these offers [of aid and free trade deals by the US] come with conditions. Foremost among them is a renewed effort to contain the growth of coca. That clashes with Mr Morales’s pledge to “depenalise” the leaf (but not the drug). Many Bolivians are fed up with the United States’ bullying drug “war”. But aid accounts for a tenth of Bolivia’s GDP. Much of it is subject to American approval. If the United States “decertifies” Bolivia on drugs, markets and chequebooks slam shut.


Nevertheless, it carries the only statements in this corpus that directly undermine this anti-

conquest rhetoric by highlighting the European and Brazilian role in Bolivia:

It is easy to see why the Americans might wish to undermine him rather than watch Bolivia turn into a cross between a Chavez-style elected autocracy and a narco-state. But that would be a grave mistake. America has few, if any, vital interests in Bolivia. The main gas companies there are European and Brazilian, not American. Mr Morales’s opposition to coca eradication will worry the drug warriors in Washington: it comes just when a squeeze on coca production in Colombia is at last having an impact on the street price of cocaine in the United States. But most Bolivian cocaine goes to Brazil and Europe – and “victories” over drugs tend anyway to be temporary blips in an unwinnable war.


However, it should be noted that the Economist takes an explicit pro-legalisation

editorial line on drugs, in keeping with its general advocacy of free market economic policies,

and the two above excerpts are as likely – and indeed perhaps more likely – to be influenced by

that editorial position as much as any desire to illuminate Europe’s role in Latin America.

The way in which US interests affect British coverage of the 2005 election, combined

with the use of anti-conquest rhetoric highlights British anxiety about its place in the world since

the decline of the empire. Though it is fair to say that few British actively wish for a return to

99

formal imperialism, there remains an assumption that the UK should be a major player on the

world stage. The country’s role as a major, yet very much junior, ally to the US, is often

accompanied by resentment at the extent of US power. For example, public opposition in the

UK to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both very much contemporary to Morales’s initial

election, was mainly based upon a genuinely anti-war, human rights perspective. Yet to an

extent, the British government’s decision to send troops to both countries was accompanied by

resentment towards the UK’s subordinate role to the US, and a significant amount of public ire

was directed at the Bush administration as well as Tony Blair’s government. It could be said that

Britain’s sense of itself in the global arena is today characterized by a tension between colonial

regret and an inflated sense of importance. Effectively, the focus upon the US’s role in Bolivia’s

coca eradication programme both obscures the extent of the UK’s contemporary soft power,

and uncovers resentment at the country’s diminished global role.


Situationality

As demonstrated by Table 2.7a, the Bolivian coverage of the 2005 elections defines

Morales by his candidacy, and later presidency. 104 of the 164 terms applied to Morales

describe him simply as a candidate or president/president-elect. Morales’s MAS leadership is

the second most commonly-used definition, though it is used much less frequently with just 22

instances. In contrast to the Bolivian coverage of the 2002, Morales’s occupation as cocalero

leader is rarely mentioned, being used on just seven occasions. Though it would be inaccurate

to say his ethnicity is ignored, the Bolivian press makes fewer explicit references to Morales’s

ethnicity than the British press, with just ten descriptions of him as the country’s first indigenous

president, and an additional six other definitions related to ethnicity. Like the 2002 election, the

Bolivian press generally keeps to purely descriptive terms when referring to Morales. The form

of situationality suggests that for the Bolivian press, Morales had become a key figure on the

mainstream political landscape, and little expository detail was required. The most significant

way in which the Bolivian situationality devices differ from the British ones is the absence of

references to international allies, or to him being part of a leftwards trend, indicating that for the

Bolivian press, general elections are an entirely domestic issue. In contrast, the British press

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continually seeks to locate Bolivian politics within a broader regional narrative, as discussed

earlier.


ELECTION



Presidency/candidacy 104 el presidente electo 33

presidente 13


el nuevo presidente 4

el presidente electo de Bolivia 3

el mandatario 3

el candidato 3

el líder boliviano 2

el postulante a la Presidencia del Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 2

el candidato masista 2

el virtual presidente de Bolivia 2

el candidato del Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 2

el postulante a la Presidencia por el Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 1

el nuevo presidente de Bolivia 1

el mandatario constitucional 66 de Bolivia 1

el candidato a la Presidencia de la Republica 1

candidato por el MAS 1

virtual Presidente 1


el virtual presidente electo de Bolivia 1

el mandatario electo 1

el nuevo Presidente electo de Bolivia 1

el presidente de la Republica 1


el candidato presidencial del MAS 1

el candidato a la Presidencia de la Republica por el Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 1

futuro mandatario 1

el próximo Primer Mandatario 1

el presidente electo boliviano 1

el futuro Primer Mandatario de la Nación 1

el nuevo mandatario 1

el flamante Jefe de Estado 1

el electo presidente 1

el virtual presidente boliviano 1

el postulante del MAS 1

el aspirante que ocupa el primer lugar en las encuestas del percepción del voto 1

el postulante masista 1

el virtual presidente de la Republica 1

el futuro Jefe de Estado 1

el Jefe de Estado 1

el candidato a la presidencia por ese partido 1

mandatario constitucional 1

Party leadership 22 el líder del MAS 7

el líder masista 3

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el jefe del MAS 3

el masista 3

el presidente del MAS 2

el líder político 1

el líder del Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 1

el dirigente del MAS 1

jefe nacional de la tienda política 1

Presidency & ethnicity 10 el primer presidente indígena 4

presidente indígena 2

el que será el primer presidente indio de Bolivia 1

el primer indígena en ocupar la primera magistratura del país 1

el nuevo líder indígena 1

el primer mandatario indígena boliviano 1

Coca 7 el líder cocalero 4

el cocalero 1

el ex líder cocalero 1

el entonces dirigente cocalero 1

Leftism/radicalism/nationalism 5 el líder socialista boliviano 1

aquel dirigente radical 1

dirigente radical 1

el dirigente socialista de 46 anos 1

el líder socialista 1

Ethnicity & leadership 3 el líder indígena 3

Ethnicity 3 un indígena 2

un aymara de 46 anos 1

Candidacy & party leadership 1 el candidato a la Presidencia y líder del MAS 1

Ethnicity & leftism 1 el dirigente indígena e izquierdista 1

Outright majority 1 el primer que gana con mayoría absoluta 1

Other 7 el gran ausente en el foro 2

el ganador de las elecciones 2

el niño pobre que se hizo líder cocalero 1

el político 1

el boliviano 1

Framing of election

A key difference in the framing of the 2005 elections by the British and Bolivian press is

that the former explicitly highlights Morales’s ethnicity while, at least immediately after the

election, the latter highlights the fact that he and the MAS won by an overall majority. This is not

made obvious in Tables 2.6a and 2.7a since the overall majority lends itself less well to being

used as a situationality device, yet early Bolivian headlines underscore the overall majority: ‘EL

MAS OBTUVO LA VOTACIÓN MÁS ALTA DE LOS ÚLTIMOS 20 AÑOS: Histórica elección le

102

da el poder a Evo Morales’ (Correo del Sur 19 December 2005: 1); ‘Evo Morales hace historia,

arrasa y será presidente’ (La Razón 19 December 2005: 1); and ‘Evo, Presidente: HISTÓRICO.

El MAS superó el 50% de la votación’ (El Deber 19 December 2005: 1). Los Tiempos gives

primacy to the scale of Morales’s victory, though it also makes references to humble origins

which could be interpreted as euphemistic references to ethnicity. The paper notes early in its

lead article the day after the election that ‘[…] Morales hizo historia al alcanzar tal nivel de

votación, además de ser la primera persona de condición humilde en el país que consigue

apoyo de gran envergadura en las urnas’ (Los Tiempos 19 December 2005: 1). Similarly, La

Razón’s description of Morales as ‘el niño pobre que se hizo líder cocalero’ may also be

regarded as implicitly referring to his ethnicity.

This is not to say that the Bolivian press pays no attention to the fact that Morales would

be the country’s first indigenous president. Certainly by the time of Morales’s inauguration in

January 2006 the Bolivian press was more focused on that fact than the margin of victory.

Nevertheless, the initial reaction to Morales’s victory suggests that to a certain extent the overall

majority was the most important thing about the result. The instability of the previous three

years possibly played a role as the Bolivian press sought to emphasize Morales’s democratic

legitimacy and suggest that his mandate would enable the new government to operate more

effectively than its recent predecessors. On the other hand, the publication of the departmental

breakdown of the vote, albeit routine, emphasized the fact that support for Morales was weaker

in the eastern lowlands, a regional division that would fuel protests during his first term in

office.11

Alternatively, the focus on the overall majority as opposed to ethnicity may simply be a

manifestation of the historical political invisibility of the indigenous and the blindness on the part

of the white elite that dominates the media to its own historical advantage. To an extent, early

11

It is outwith the scope of this thesis to discuss the regional divide, which constituted its own category of news items within the larger corpus, in any meaningful way. The matter encompasses a range of issues including the historical erasure of the presence of indigenous lowlanders in the Bolivian national narrative, the protection of class privilege through demands for regional autonomy, distinct regional/departmental identities that precede the MAS administration, and the heterogeneous nature of Bolivia’s indigenous groups. For more information see Harten 2011; Grisaffi 2010; Hertzler 2010; Albó 2008: 41-43; and in particular Prado S., Seleme A., and Peña C. 2007. However, it should be pointed out that the international media’s coverage of the regional divide not only oversimplified the situation by presenting the country as divided between the indigenous highlands and white lowlands, but also ignored the not insignificant support for Morales and the MAS in the eastern departments of Santa Cruz and Tarija, where Morales came second in the election with 33.17 per cent and 31.55 per cent of the vote respectively. Reyes Villa took 41.8 per cent and 45.28 per cent of the vote respectively in the two departments. Support for Morales was, however, significantly lower in Beni and Pando, where he came third with 16.5 per cent and 20.85 per cent of the vote respectively (CNE 2005: 5-7).

103

attempts at nation-building in Bolivia, as elsewhere in Latin America, ignored ethnicity as a way

of encouraging a cohesive Bolivian, mestizaje identity (Guevara-Ordóñez 2010). The creation of

a Bolivian identity necessitated the erasure of pre-existing identities both in order to promote

internal stability and to assert Creole difference from the metropolitan government, and the early

framing of the election suggests that this Creole narrative continues to influence public

discourse.

Morales the outsider

Though the Bolivian press does not pay as much attention to Morales’s ethnicity as the

British press, the Bolivian articles that form this part of the corpus do see Morales cast as

radically different to the established political elite. This is achieved largely with reference to his

humble origins, and even then the extent of this portrayal is rather limited. As noted above, Los

Tiempos describes Morales as ‘[…] la primera persona de condición humilde en el país que

consigue apoyo de gran envergadura en las urnas’ (Los Tiempos 19 December 2005: 1). La

Razón, in an article headlined ‘Evo Morales, el niño pobre que se hizo líder cocalero’ recounts

one of Morales’s own stories about his background:

[…] el pequeño Evo esperaba el paso de los vehículos del transporte público que pasaban cerca de su natal Orinoca, en Oruro. Con su cara empolvada de la tierra de la carretera y bajo el fuerte sol del altiplano, recogía las cáscaras de naranja que los pasajeros de las flotas tiraban a la vía, según cuenta él mismo.

(La Razón 19 December 2005: A7)

Correo del Sur and El Deber also highlight Morales’s humble origins: ‘De extracción

humilde […] Aquel que fuera pastor de llamas, trompetista, panadero, jornalero y cultivador de

hoja de coca asumirá las riendas del país desde este 22 de enero’ (Correo del Sur 22 January

2006: 2), and:

Evo Morales Ayma dejó las montañas y el viento frío que bajaba de ellos, su manada de llamas y su casa de adobe en Orinoca a finales de 1980 para ayudar a su padre que, decepcionado por la despiadada sequía que reinaba en los campos de Oruro, se había trasladado a San Francisco (Chapare) en busca de mejores días y de tierras productivas.

(El Deber 22 January 2006: A8)

Yet ethnicity as a marker of difference, and even inferiority, is not completely absent

from the Bolivian press. As noted earlier, discussion of Morales’s humble background may be

regarded as euphemistic references to his ethnicity. More explicitly, a BBC Mundo interview with

García Linera that is published in El Diario includes the suggestion that the white vice-president,

104

rather than Morales, is the brains of the MAS operation, incorporating descriptions of his

background as a prominent intellectual. Yet while García Linera dismisses the idea that it is he

that is the intellectual driving force of the party, his answer reinforces the notion of ethnicity as a

marker of difference, declaring that he acts as an intermediary between the indigenous and

white populations:

(Lo primero) es una exageración. Yo he aportado – de manera sencilla y humilde – compromiso, producción intelectual, diría que puentes con los sectores sociales. Yo me considero simplemente un intermediario cultural entre los sectores indígenas populares y las clases medias. Soy un traductor más que un inyector de algo. Traduzco de otra manera lo que sale con un lenguaje fuerte, histórico. Hasta ahí llegaría mi aporte.

(El Diario 22 December 2005: Cuerpo III 4)

Of course, the very juxtaposition of the white bibliophile García Linera with Morales may also be

interpreted as an implied reference to Morales’s ethnicity, though it should be pointed out that

the corpus of articles used in this thesis do not feature García Linera frequently enough to draw

any meaningful conclusions in this area.

Meanwhile, a symbolic, extra-official inauguration ceremony held at the Inca ruins of

Tiwanaku the day before Morales’s official inauguration sees much reference to ethnicity and

traditional dress as a marker of difference, often driven by Morales’s own discourse:

Vestido con el unku rojo (una especie de poncho) y el chuku de jinetas rojas y amarillas (como lo habrían hecho los sacerdotes precolombinos por última vez hace más de 500 años), Evo saluda al tata Inti desde la cumbre de Akapana y le pide fuerzas y permiso para gobernar el país […]

(Los Tiempos 22 January 2006: A6)

and

Tiwanaku se encuentra ubicada a 80 kilómetros de la sede de Gobierno y es considerada la capital del Mundo Andino, que hoy se vestirá de gala para un evento significativo e histórico de la asunción al poder del primer presidente indígena Evo Morales Aima, quien además lucirá una vestimenta especial en la cual destacará la cultura y la tradición tiwanacota.

(El Diario 21 January 2006: 1)

In addition, the naming of the cabinet sees Los Tiempos feel the need to explain what a

pollera is: ‘Casimira Rodríguez se encargará del Ministerio de Justicia. Rodríguez es una

trabajadora del hogar que viste con "pollera", ropa tradicional de las mujeres andinas […]’ (Los

Tiempos 24 January 2006: A4), suggesting that traditional Andean clothing is considered far

from the norm amongst its readers, despite the fact that a large proportion of the country’s

population regularly wears a pollera. Of course, this not only relflects the fact that the paper’s

105

readership is largely white and middle- or upper-class, but also reveals the logic of coloniality

insofar as it highlights the Otherness of ‘mujeres andinas’ in the eyes of the Bolivian press, and

implies that Andean women are inherently different to Bolivian women.



the Bolivian articles concerning the 2005 election. Once again, Evo Morales is the most

commonly quoted actor, with 282 instances of discourse representation, or 47.8 per cent of all

represented discourse. MAS party officials are the second most-frequently quoted group, with

59 instances, or ten per cent of the total. Bolivian-based political analysts are cited less

frequently than within the coverage of the 2002 election, with 31 instances, or just 5.25 per cent

of the total. Once again, other presidential candidates and political party officials amount to a

relatively small proportion of the represented discourse, their combined total constituting 16.78

per cent of represented discourse. Of course, their low frequency in comparison to Morales and

the MAS would be at least partially due to the selection bias discussed earlier. The extent to

which non-Bolivians are quoted remains relatively stable, with all non-Bolivian actors and

institutions comprising ten per cent of the total discourse representation figures. The frequency

with which non-Bolivian actors are quoted is largely due to Morales’s international tour in

between his election and inauguration. Of course, there is less of a disparity between the

Bolivian and British discourse representation figures for the 2005 election than was the case for

the 2002 election, since the British coverage of the 2005 election, as discussed above,

demonstrated an increased willingness to foreground the discourse of Bolivian actors.

Boundary maintenance is relatively uniform across Bolivian newspapers, with 262

instances of represented discourse, or 44.41 per cent, presented as ID. The only exception is

Correo del Sur, which renders more than half of its represented discourse as DD(S). Boundary

maintenance is also reasonably uniform across cited sources, with the discourse of 19 of the 28

actors or institutions quoted being presented mostly as ID, confirming that the Bolivian press

readily incorporates the discourse of all actors and institutions. Once more, the low levels of

boundary maintenance mean that the candidates and parties shape their own public image with

few constraints, and represents a narrowing of public discourse in Bolivia.

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TABLE 2.8A DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BOLIVIAN 2005 ELECTION RELATED ARTICLES


Evo Morales 84 84 111 3 282


Jorge 'Tuto' Quiroga 2 9 11 0 22

PODEMOS officials 0 3 0 0 3

Samuel Doria Medina 3 4 11 0 18

UN officials 0 1 0 0 1

Gildo Angulo 2 4 2 0 8

NFR officials 0 0 1 0 1

Michiaki Nagatani 4 1 5 0 10

MNR officials 1 0 1 0 2

Felipe Quispe 2 4 2 0 8

MIP officials 0 1 0 0 1

Eliceo Rodríguez 3 5 5 0 13

Néstor García 3 4 5 0 12

Polls 0 0 12 0 12




CNE officials 2 1 11 0 14



European/US Other 4 3 4 0 11



IMF officials 0 0 3 0 3

Chinese officials 1 1 2 0 4

Organization of American States 0 0 1 0 1

Peruvian analyst 2 0 2 0 4

Total 157 168 262 3 590


In contrast to the British coverage of the 2005 election, the Bolivian newspaper articles

that form this part of the corpus feature few attempts to contextualize the 2005 election result in

terms of a regional swing to the left. El Diario publishes an interview with García Linera, in

which the then vice-president elect acknowledges, yet downplays, comparisons to Chávez and

Lula:

Evo Morales, esta candidatura, este partido, ve con simpatía lo que pasa en América Latina en términos de gobiernos progresistas. Pero más allá de eso, no hay la búsqueda de imitar a nadie. Evo Morales no es chavista ni lulista, es evista.

(El Diario 22 December 2005: Cuerpo III 4)

Yet the interview itself was carried out by BBC Mundo, so while the notion of a regional trend is

disseminated by El Diario, the content reflects the editorial concerns of the British broadcaster

more than the Bolivian newspaper. Correo del Sur highlights Morales’s links to Chávez and

Castro, yet stops short of identifying a regional swing to the left and indeed notes that Morales

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himself downplays similarities to his northern counterparts: ‘Esa cercanía también lo vincula al

presidente de Cuba, Fidel Castro. Sin embargo, en su visita a Argentina, Morales Aima aclaró

que no se somete ni a Chávez ni al líder cubano, aunque admitió que escucha a sus consejos’

(Correo del Sur 22 December 2005: 4). Only La Razón unequivocally characterizes the result

as part a regional trend, publishing an article entitled ‘La victoria de Evo refuerza la ola

izquierdista en la región’ (La Razón 2 January 2006: A1).

The 2009 election

During Morales’s first term a new constitution, the Constitución Política del Estado

(CPE), was drawn up by a constituent assembly elected in July 2006. The new CPE, ratified by

referendum in January 2009, dictated that an election had to be held on 6 December 2009.

Since one of the provisions of the new charter was to remove the presidential single term limit,

Morales was able to run for president again.12

The 2009 election would be the first under which

a public run-off, rather than congressional run-off, would apply should no candidate take an

absolute majority, or alternatively fail to take forty per cent with a margin of ten per cent over

their nearest rival. In addition, it would be the first election in which Bolivian citizens resident

abroad could vote, and the first in which special ‘indígena originario campesinas’ constituencies

would be contested (Tribunal Supremo Electoral, Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el

Desarrollo and Servicio Intercultural de Fortalecimiento 2010a: 363).

The election was not without controversy. During the run up to polling day, a number of

the members of the opposition attempted to delegitimize the election, claiming that all the

changes implemented since 2006 had been characterized by fraud, and that the electoral

register would be subject to manipulation – presumably by the MAS – unless biometric controls

were introduced. The opposition refused to approve regulations for the election until they

included provisions for a new register with biometric controls (Tribunal Supremo Electoral,

Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo and Servicio Intercultural de

Fortalecimiento 2010a: 363).

12

Morales’s decision to run for president again was not without controversy. Critics argued he should not be allowed to run again, since he was originally elected while a single term limit was in operation. However, Morales successfully argued that he should be allowed to run again since the new constitution permitted two terms. Morales has since announced he will run in the 2014 election, on the grounds that since his first term was under the old constitution, his current term should be considered his first under the new constitution, and consequently he is entitled to run again.

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The election proved to be a landslide victory for Morales and the MAS, as they took

64.2 per cent of the vote for president and vice president, thereby cementing the party’s popular

mandate. The nearest rivals were Plan Progreso para Bolivia – Convergencia Nacional (PPB–

CN), a right-wing coalition led by Manfred Reyes Villa, which took 26.5 per cent of the vote

(Tribunal Supremo Electoral, Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo and Servicio

Intercultural de Fortalecimiento 2010a: 366). The fact that the PPB-CN, made up of the NFR,

the once-dominant MNR, the civic group Autonomía para Bolivia (APB), and the Partido Popular

(PP), could only muster a little over a quarter of the vote between them is perhaps a measure of

the utter annihilation of Bolivia’s traditional parties. Jeffery R. Webber (2011a: 153-54) notes

that the ‘December 2009 elections represented the most profound level of institutional

consolidation in the apparatuses of the state for any political force in recent Bolivian memory’

since, in addition to it being the first time a Bolivian president was elected to a second

consecutive term, it was the first time since 1952 that one party had an outright majority in both

Congress and the Senate, affording the MAS the opportunity to accelerate the process of

change.


Situationality

The 2009 election sees a further reduction in the use of qualitative situationality devices

on the part of the British press, with seventeen of the descriptions – almost half of the total –

focusing on his presidency. References to Morales’s coca-farming past and to both his

presidency and ethnicity are the second and third most frequent situationality devices

respectively, both categories being used far less than his presidency. The reduction of the use

of ethnicity and coca in situationality devices indicates both that the legitimacy of Morales’s

presidency has been fully accepted by the UK press, and his occupation and ethnicity are no

longer regarded as marks of exoticism. The reduced attention to Morales’s time as a cocalero

may also be due to the fact that his election did not, as will be discussed in chapter three, lead

to a complete cessation of anti-drugs efforts, as was feared upon his initial election.

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TABLE 2.9A DESCRIPTIONS OF EVO MORALES IN BRITISH 2009 ELECTION RELATED ARTICLES



Presidency/candidacy 17 president 14

Bolivia's president 1

president of Bolivia 1

Bolivian president 1

Coca 5 former coca farmer leader 2

the former coca farmer union [sic] 1

former coca grower leader 1

former coca farmer 1

Presidency & ethnicity 4 Bolivia's first indigenous president 2

the country's first indigenous president 1

Bolivia's first indigenous leader 1

Allies 2 a close ally of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela 1

a close ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro 1

Leftism 1 Bolivia's leftist president 1

Coca & ethnicity

1 coca workers' leader of Aymara Indian descent 1

Other 6 one of Latin America's most popular leaders 1

triumphant 2

a former llama herder 1

a former herder of llamas 1

a genuinely progressive president 1


The portrayal of Morales and other Bolivians as the exotic Other is virtually absent from

the UK coverage of the 2009 election, particularly in comparison to its prevalence in the

coverage of the two previous elections. Yet the Economist reproduces the notion of Bolivians as

irrational, by suggesting that Morales’s continued popularity amongst ordinary Bolivians is due

to an inherent inability to see through political spin and bribery, rather than them judging

Morales by his actions during his first term:

A majority of Bolivians are still in thrall to Mr Morales’s rhetoric, which appeals to both socialism and ethnic identity […] Mr Morales’s nationalisation of oil and natural gas in 2006, together with higher prices for gas exports to Brazil, left his government awash with cash. He used this to expand welfare provision, including a non-contributory old-age pension and payments to mothers provided their children are at school and their babies are taken for health checks. The president has also handed out hundreds of free tractors.

(Economist 12 December 2009: 1)

Meanwhile, the Financial Times repeats the objectification of ordinary indigenous

Bolivians seen in the coverage of earlier elections:

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In El Alto, a city of mostly Aymara and Quechua rural immigrants on the high plateau above the capital of La Paz, a local college turned polling station filled quickly with women in bowler hats and fringed shawls, children at their many-layered skirts or slung over their backs in iridescent-coloured ponchos.

(Financial Times 6 December 2009)


As illustrated by Table 2.10a, there are in total 46 instances of discourse representation

within the British coverage of Bolivia’s 2009 election, far fewer than was the case within the

British coverage of the 2005 election. Despite the smaller total, the range of quoted actors is

similar to that found in the coverage of the previous election, in that a greater proportion of

space is given to Bolivian actors and institutions than non-Bolivians. There is just a single

instance of non-Bolivian discourse representation, while the Bolivian public and opinion polls

are the joint most frequently cited sources of information. This would suggest that Bolivians are

no longer the silent objects of the European gaze. It should be noted, however, that boundary

maintenance is slightly different to that of the 2005 election. The proportion of discourse

rendered DD and ID are almost equal, with 19 instances of the former and 21 instances of the

latter. Furthermore, if polls – which cannot be rendered as anything other than ID – are removed

from the figures, one can see that the majority of discourse is rendered as DD. The boundary

maintenance figures suggest a resistance on the part of the UK press to absorbing and

incorporating the discourse of Bolivian actors. Therefore, while the British press is increasingly

willing to quote Bolivian actors, it appears less willing to truly engage with Bolivian ideas insofar

as it is generally inclined to explicitly mark Bolivian discourse as secondary discourse. While the

increased willingness to quote Bolivian actors could be said to correspond to Pratt’s notion of

transculturation as a bidirectional phenomenon, insofar as the increased domestic visibility of

indigenous Bolivians coincides with an increased willingness by the UK press to provide space

for Bolivian voice, or simply to a reduction in the logic of coloniality, the degree of boundary

maintenance means that the true extent of this appears extremely limited.

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ELECTION






Bolivian media 0 0 1 0 1

Polls 0 0 10 0 10




Victor Hugo Cardenas 1 0 0 0 1


Total 19 6 21 0 46


The contextualization of the Morales government as part of a wider regional swing to

the left lessens considerably by the 2009 election. Of the five British papers that cover

Morales’s re-election, just the Economist and Financial Times refer to any regional trend. Yet

the Economist, rather than situating the administration within a group of left-leaning

governments, asserts that Morales is part of an anti-American trend: ‘His victory was not just a

triumph for Bolivians but also for all “anti-imperialist” governments and peoples, said Mr

Morales, who is allied with Mr Chávez and Cuba in an anti-American block [sic]’ (Economist 12

December 2009: 1). The use of quotation marks around the term anti-imperialist serves to

delegitimize Morales’s position and imply that it is fuelled by racism rather than opposition to the

presence of foreign corporations in the Bolivian economy and US troops in the Chapare. The

characterization of what the MAS term anti-imperialism as simply anti-Americanism also neatly

side-steps the presence of European firms and constitutes a further example of anti-conquest

rhetoric and the assertion of the colonial difference. The Financial Times, meanwhile, explicitly

identifies a leftist trend and displays a concern with the decline of the West’s influence:

In terms of the region, Mr Morales’ victory solidifies a core of radical leftist administrations in the Andes, who have a combative relationship with the US and who have forged greater business and political ties with China, India and Iran.

(Financial Times 6 December 2009)

A lost world

The British coverage of the 2009 election in general shows a concern for the effect the

result will have on the UK and the US as much as the effect it will have on Bolivia. Articles that

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summarize Morales’s first term stress his actions in relation to the extractive industries and his

relationship with the US. The Guardian states that:

Aymara and Quechua Indians had queued from early yesterday morning at polling stations to vote for Morales the former llama herder and coca farmer, who has nationalised key sectors of the economy, boosted social spending and clashed with the US.

(Guardian 7 December 2009)

Similarly, the Financial Times foregrounds those actions which most affect British and

US interests: ‘Evo Morales, the former coca farmer who rewrote Bolivia’s constitution,

nationalised its oil and gas industry and ousted the United States ambassador, seemed likely to

secure a second term as president yesterday as elections began’ (Financial Times 7 December

2009: 10), while, as noted above, the Economist characterizes the MAS administration as being

part of an anti-American bloc, suggesting that any challenge to US hegemony in the region is

fuelled by racism. This suggests yet again that British coverage of Bolivia is governed by both

British and US interests. However, the fact that only the US is explicitly identified as having a

troubled relationship with the current Bolivian administration yet again signifies an affirmation of

the colonial difference, as well as anti-conquest rhetoric.


Situationality

Table 2.11a makes clear that, in its coverage of the 2009 election, the Bolivian press

defines Morales solely in relation to his candidacy, and later presidency. All of the 67 labels

applied to Morales describe him simply as a candidate or president/president-elect. In contrast

to the Bolivian coverage of the 2002 and 2005 elections, Morales is not defined by way of

references his cocalero leadership and explicit references to his ethnicity. As was the case with

the coverage of the two earlier elections, the Bolivian press uses purely descriptive terms when

referring to Morales. The fact that all descriptions of Morales focus solely on his candidacy or

presidency is evidence of both formality on the part of the Bolivian press and the fact that

Morales’s background and ethnicity are considered to be of secondary importance to his role as

president. Of course, one can assume that the Bolivian readership would by now be thoroughly

familiar with Morales and would need less expository detail than its British counterpart.

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ELECTION



Presidency/candidacy

67 el presidente 36

el mandatario 10

el jefe de Estado 4

el presidente del Estado Plurinacional 2

el presidente de Bolivia 2


el reelecto Primer Mandatario 1

el candidato 1

el candidato y presidente del país 1

el candidato del Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 1

el presidente electo 1

el virtual reelecto presidente 1

el gobernante 1

el presidente boliviano 1

el actual mandatario 1

el reelecto mandatario 1

el mandatario y candidato a la reelección presidencial 1

el ratificado Primer Mandatario 1


Table 2.12a indicates that there are a total of 202 instances of discourse representation

in the Bolivian articles concerning the 2009 election. Yet again, Evo Morales is the single most

commonly quoted source, with 56 instances of discourse representation, or 27.72 per cent of

the total, while MAS party officials are once more the second most frequently quoted source,

with 34 instances, or 16.83 per cent of the total. Bolivian political analysts are cited more often

than during the 2005 election, with 28 instances, or 13.86 per cent of the total. Other

presidential candidates and political party officials amount to a tiny proportion of represented

discourse, amounting to just 6.44 per cent of the total combined. Though their low frequency in

comparison to that of Morales and the MAS can be explained partly by the selection bias

discussed earlier, these figures indicate a lack of contestation of MAS discourse within the

Bolivian press, and are evident of an increasingly homogenous public discourse and the

emergence of a new political elite.

Non-Bolivian actors and institutions constitute 11.89 per cent of the total discourse

representation figures, and as such the proportion of non-Bolivian discourse representation

remains relatively stable. Yet these figures also mean that the disparity between the Bolivian

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and British discourse representation figures has reappeared, albeit in reverse. As discussed

earlier in this section, non-Bolivian discourse was virtually absent from the British coverage of

the 2009 election, meaning that the Bolivian press now features more non-Bolivian discourse

related to domestic elections than the British press does. Yet it should be noted that, as is made

clearer by the per paper breakdown in Table 2.12b in the appendix, all non-Bolivian discourse

representation found within the Bolivian coverage of the 2009 election is contained in Los

Tiempos, and moreover within two articles, the first of which reports on the EU Electoral

Observation Mission.

Boundary maintenance remains relatively uniform across the four Bolivian newspapers,

with 102 instances of represented discourse, or 50.5 per cent, rendered as ID. Boundary

maintenance also remains reasonably uniform across cited sources, with the discourse of 12 of

the 18 actors or institutions quoted rendered most frequently as ID. Yet the three non-Bolivian

actors are quoted with a higher degree of boundary maintenance, the majority of such discourse

being rendered as DD(S). This suggests that the Bolivian press is just as resistant to

incorporating non-Bolivian discourse as its British counterpart is to incorporating Bolivian

discourse. As has been the case with the two earlier elections, the low levels of boundary

maintenance in relation to Bolivian sources mean that the candidates and parties taking part in

the election are able to mould their own public image largely unchallenged.

TABLE 2.12A: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BOLIVIAN PRESS ARTICLES RELATING TO THE 2009

ELECTION





PPB officials 0 1 2 0 3



Ruben Costas 1 1 4 0 6

Polls 0 0 12 0 12


Santa Cruz officials 1 0 0 4 5



Santa Cruz civic organizations 0 0 1 0 1




CDE officials 0 0 5 0 5

United Nations officials 0 3 0 0 3

Total 42 53 102 5 202

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It was noted earlier in this section that the frequency with which the UK press portrays

the MAS government as part of a wider regional swing to the left decreases significantly within

the coverage of the 2009 election. It should be noted that, as was the case with the 2002

election, the Bolivian coverage of the 2009 election features no attempt whatsoever to

contextualize the continued popularity of Morales and the MAS within a broader regional

narrative. It would appear that the Bolivian press regards general elections as a purely domestic

issue and has little need, or desire, to create a continental narrative to which universal,

uncomplicated conclusions can be applied. The absence of a regional narrative would indicate

that, where British commentators often view Latin America as a single, homogenous entity that

can be examined at the macro-level, Latin Americans themselves regard the continent as a

collection of individual nation-states that are completely distinct from one another.

Conclusions

This chapter has featured an analysis of the British and Bolivian press coverage of

Bolivia’s general elections in 2002, 2005, and 2009. The chapter has uncovered a number of

dissimilarities between the coverage in either country, as well as differences in coverage from

one election to the next. More importantly, the chapter has demonstrated that, while British

representations of Latin America have moved on somewhat from the problematic nineteenth-

century representations, contemporary press coverage repeats some aspects of those early

representations. In addition, the chapter has also demonstrated that the extent to which the

contemporary Bolivian press exhibits signs of having internalized the European gaze is limited,

though it is also not devoid of problematic features. The coverage of the 2005 election has

proved particularly ripe for analysis since, of the three, it yielded the largest number of articles

from the UK press. Yet the coverage of the 2002 and 2009 elections has proved useful for

comparative analysis, insofar as they show the evolution of coverage over a seven-year period.

The most significant difference between the British and Bolivian press coverage of the

three elections is the level of attention paid to Morales’s ethnicity, with the former being vastly

more inclined to explicitly foreground his ethnic origins. This is achieved primarily through the

greater use of qualitative situationality devices on the part of the UK press, and is particularly

116

apparent in the coverage of the 2005 election, in which the British press framed Morales’s

victory in terms of him being Bolivia’s first indigenous president, while the immediate reaction of

the Bolivian press was to foreground the outright majority he and the MAS had achieved. The

difference is reminiscent of the Victorian tendency to classify everything and everybody, on the

one hand, and the Creole-led creation of a cohesive Bolivian, mestizo identity on the other. That

is, the British focus on Morales’s ethnicity reflects European ‘scientific’ traditions; whilst the

absence of such a focus from the Bolivian side reflects a political project which served to erase

ethnic and cultural difference whilst fostering the emergence of a white elite that has until

recently dominated public life in Bolivia. Yet it should be noted that the British press’s focus on

ethnicity lessens over time, while the Bolivian press’s use of Morales’s childhood poverty as a

marker of difference could be interpreted as coded references to ethnicity.

The British press’s focus on ethnicity is accompanied by a portrayal of Bolivians as

irrational and emotional, reproducing early patterns of representation whereby Latin America

was rendered a wild, chaotic place that was home to uncivilized, irrational people. Such

coverage also serves to objectify Bolivians by presenting them as inherently different to rational

Europeans. In contrast, the Bolivian press portrays Morales as an outsider to the establishment,

though for political reasons rather than explicit ethnic reasons. Nevertheless, the objectification

of Bolivians by the UK press lessens over time, and by the 2009 election the Bolivian press

treats Morales as entirely embedded as a legitimate political actor.

One of the most striking aspects of the coverage is in the area of discourse

representation. Though the British press continues to objectify Bolivians, they are not rendered

silent or pliable as they were in early travel writing or adventure fiction. Discourse representation

figures demonstrate that the British press are increasingly inclined to quote or cite Bolivian

sources, though, particularly in the case of the 2002 and 2009 elections, boundary maintenance

exhibits some resistance to fully absorbing the discourse of Bolivian actors. In contrast, Bolivian

discourse representation over the course of the three elections reveals a narrowing of public

discourse alongside the emergence of a new hegemonic elite, as non-MAS candidates and

party officials are quoted or cited less and less frequently. Moreover, the degree to which

Morales dominates the Bolivian discourse representation figures means that he plays a large

part in the initial portrayal as an outsider who is apart from the old order.

117

Through its discussion of a regional swing to the left, the British press renders Latin

America a homogenous entity with little nuance or variation from country to country. This

effectively reflects the European idea of Latin America itself and notions of Latinidad as

established in opposition to the Anglo north. Yet despite early Creole enthusiasm for Latinidad,

the regional narrative is completely absent from the Bolivian coverage of the three elections.

Moreover, the British press’s discussion of a Latin American left and its impact upon US

regional hegemony not only homogenizes the region, but also renders Bolivia a lost world.

Effectively, the regional narrative, along with the discussion of the impact Morales’s election will

have on the War on Drugs, means that the Bolivian election is considered primarily in terms of

the effect on the US, not the effect on Bolivia itself. The extent to which coverage of Bolivian

politics is governed by US and UK concerns is also evinced by the level of coverage given to

the 2009 election vis-à-vis the 2005 election and the decrease in references to Morales’s leftism

and coca-farming background. As will be discussed in the next two chapters, the election of

Morales has not led to a complete cessation of the coca eradication programme, nor to an

especially radical overhaul of the energy sector. Since Morales has had less of an effect on US

and UK interests than initially expected, the need to characterize him as a leftist coca-farmer

has waned.

The following two chapters will examine more closely the coverage of two areas that

were fundamental to the election of Morales and the MAS – namely, coca and energy. These

chapters will make clear that for the British press Latin America remains something of a “lost

world” and that, while Bolivians are no longer the silent objects featured in early

representations, resistance to local discourse means that any transculturation is limited.

Moreover, they will show that coverage of Bolivia continues to be governed by Anglo-US

interests and the British press has taken the role of the capitalist vanguard previously occupied

by early travel writers. Meanwhile, the analysis of the Bolivian coverage of these two areas will

reveal a further narrowing of public discourse whilst showing little resistance to the rhetoric of

development.

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Chapter Three

Coca

This chapter features an analysis of the British and Bolivian press coverage of coca, a

leaf with major cultural significance, and one of its derivatives, the synthetic drug cocaine.

However, prior to the press content analysis, a brief discussion of the historical and

contemporary issues surrounding coca and cocaine is necessary due to their complexity. The

discussion will encompass the traditional uses and cultural significance of the coca leaf; the

development of cocaine; the legality of coca leaves and cocaine; the nature of and problems

associated with efforts to eradicate coca and cocaine, including economic factors contributing to

the persistence of coca growth and cocaine production; and domestic political issues related to

the coca-growing industry which arise in Bolivia.

The coca leaf and cocaine

The coca plant, erythroxylon coca and erythroxylon novagranatense, is in its various

forms native to western South America. In terms of international law, the coca leaf is considered

nothing more than the raw material for cocaine. However, coca has played an important role in

autochthonous South American culture for centuries, long before cocaine was first extracted

from it. Traditionally, coca is used in a process termed acullicar or chaccar, usually, though

rather inaccurately, translated as ‘chewing’ (Martin 1970: 429-430). Several leaves are put in

the mouth and turned over until an acullico, or quid, is formed. This is placed inside the cheek,

along with an alkaline substance such as quicklime, which aids the release of alkaloids from the

leaves. The leaves are not swallowed and may be ‘chewed’ for an hour or so at a time. Coca is

also taken in teas (Boucher 1991: 73).

While traditional use of coca is most readily associated with high-altitude Andean

cultures, especially the Incas, archaeological evidence indicates that coca use was much more

widespread. Ceramic lime pots show that the Valdivia culture of coastal Ecuador used coca as

early as 2100BC (Toyne 1999: 22), while pottery from the Moche and Nazca civilizations of

coastal Peru features frequent depictions of coca use (Bray, Dollery, and others 1983: 272).

Furthermore, ethnohistorical records indicate that

119

[...] at the time of European contact, coca was used from Nicaragua to Chile and from sea level to the high Andes. Since the region from Colombia northward is outside the area of Inca influence, this wide dispersion is not simply a consequence of Inca expansion.

(Bray, Dollery, and others 1983: 271)

Marla J. Toyne (1999: 22) points out that archaeologists maintain such widespread

traces of coca use evince the centrality of the leaf as a trade commodity in pre-Columbian

times, while Warwick Bray, Colin Dollery and others (1983: 272) argue that coca use was never

simply a highland practice, and that the modern correlation between coca and high altitude can

be explained by the greater numbers of ‘relatively unacculturated Indian communities’ at high

rather than low altitude.

Coca is said to alleviate tiredness, hunger pangs, and the effects of soroche. The leaf is

a mild stimulant, like coffee, whilst its derivative cocaine is a powerful stimulant, with anaesthetic

properties. The effects of each substance are similar, yet magnified enormously in the case of

cocaine, and the physiological side effects of long-term or excessive cocaine use can be lethal.

Long-term use of coca, on the other hand, has not been proven to have any particularly

pernicious side effects.

Colonial governments viewed coca as an important source of tax revenue and profits

(Boucher 1991: 73). Perhaps more importantly, coca helped labourers, such as the indigenous

mita miners in the silver mines of Potosí, to work longer and harder: ‘[...] coca’s “energizing and

sustaining force” can revive “wasted,” “weakened,” and undernourished workers in every

occupation. Coca is, in short, the perfect herb for capitalism [...]’ (Gootenberg 2008: 52).

Despite this utility, coca use was not adopted by the Spanish. There are various hypotheses as

to why this was; including the idea that coca-chewing was ‘aesthetically repulsive’ to

Europeans, who deemed it an incorrigible vice of an uncouth native population; or that, since

the native population regarded coca as symbolic of the defeated Andean culture, colonial elites

saw it as symbolic of Andean resistance and consequently had good political reason to

characterize coca use as barbaric witchcraft (Gootenberg 2008: 19). These ethnic differences in

coca use remain today. It is usually understood that the majority of Bolivia’s coca-chewers are

indigenous rural-dwellers, though coca tea is popular throughout the country (Boucher 1991:

120

73). However, a recent report into current demand for coca suggests that coca chewing is

becoming increasingly popular in urban areas (UNODC 2013).

The physiological effects of coca are controversial. It is regularly claimed that the leaf

can, as indicated above, alleviate hunger, tiredness, and soroche (Brennan 2009: 207). It is also

said that coca has analgesic properties, and that it is high in vitamins. However, others assert

that coca is detrimental to the user’s health. Marla J. Toyne (1999: 23-24) cites a number of

studies from the 1970s to 1990s, which found that coca can: lessen the effects of altitude-

related hypoxia, a lack of oxygen in the tissues, by stimulation of the respiratory systems; aid

heat retention; and act as a useful dietary supplement in a region where nutritional choices are

limited, as it contains vitamins A, B1 and C, riboflavin, iron, and phosphorous. Toyne also cites

several studies relating to the medicinal properties of coca, though it is unclear if these studies

are simply catalogues of the ailments coca is prescribed for, or scientific investigations into the

usefulness of such treatment. Toyne indicates that while there are studies which refute the

claims regarding the health benefits of the leaf, none of those studies provide evidence that

coca-chewing is actively injurious to health.

In pre-colonial times, coca was incorporated into the religious practices of many of the

region’s peoples, and consequently there is a ritualistic aspect to its use. For example,

Catherine J. Allen (1981: 159-164), describing the customs of the inhabitants of Sonqo allyu,

Paucartambo, Peru, indicates that conventions during everyday coca-chewing include

‘unhurried respectful use’, the sharing of leaves, ‘prescribed phrases of invitation and thanks’,

and the summoning of spirits whilst facing a sacred spot. Allen acknowledges that there are

regional differences in the minutiae of such conventions. More recently, Heraclio Bonilla (2006:

336) explains how Bolivian miners offer coca leaves in order to placate El Tío, the vengeful

guardian of the mines, along with alcohol, cigarettes, and food. My own more casual

observations at the Cerro Rico mines in Potosí in 2007 were that everyday coca-chewing lacked

any particular ceremony. The miners’ use of coca appeared similar to a tea break in the UK,

more routine than ritual. Nevertheless, I was informed that the miners continue to offer coca to

El Tío as described by Bonilla. Of course, the differences between the practices of the people of

Sonqo depicted by Allen and my own observations of the Cerro Rico miners may well be

temporal as much as spatial. Nonetheless, Thomas Grisaffi (2010: 430) indicates that on the

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Bolivian altiplano coca-chewing remains a practice accompanied by ‘elaborate rituals’, whereas

the coca-chewers of the Chapare use the leaf in a much more casual manner.

Coca also plays a social role. As mentioned above, Allen (1981: 159-160) notes that the

sharing of leaves is a central convention of coca use. Leaves may be given as thanks for a

favour, and are offered to guests as a mark of hospitality. Such is the centrality of coca to

Andean social life that declining an offer of some leaves may be interpreted as a refusal to

socialize, even in those areas where the ritualistic aspects of use are not so common (Grisaffi

2010: 430). Leaves may be exchanged in symbolic recognition of social contracts or

agreements (Toyne 1999: 24).

As illustrated above, in Andean culture, the coca leaf is far removed from cocaine, and

coca and cocaine are not regarded as synonymous, unlike in international law. It is outwith the

scope of this chapter to make a case for the distinction between coca and cocaine. However,

the reader’s awareness of the difference, if not endorsement of it, is crucial, as it adds a layer of

complexity to anti-drugs efforts in Bolivia, and is central to the rise of Morales and the MAS and

the political influence of the cocaleros. Moreover, the press’s treatment of this distinction will

form a fundamental part of the analysis that follows.

Despite the distinction, international agreements allow for no division between the plant

and the synthetic drug: international trade of both are banned under the United Nations Single

Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961: ‘“Coca leaf” means the leaf of the coca bush except a leaf

from which all ecgonine, cocaine and any other ecgonine alkaloids have been removed [...] The

“coca leaf” is a “drug” within the meaning of the Single Convention’ (United Nations Secretary

General 1973: 6). Furthermore, the 1931 Convention on Narcotic Drugs:

[...] provided for extension of control to additional drugs by decisions of international organs which did not require acceptance by the Parties but were automatically binding upon them. This authority was however, limited to two narrowly defined chemical groups, namely to products “obtained from any of the phenanthrene alkaloids of opium or from the ecgonine alkaloids of the coca leaf”.

(United Nations Secretary General 1973: 74-75)

The 1961 Single Convention obliges states ‘to limit exclusively to medical and scientific

purposes the production, manufacture, export, import, distribution of, trade in, use and

possession of drugs’ (United Nations Secretary General 1973: 108). While article forty-nine of

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the Convention notes that ‘A Party may at the time of signature, ratification or accession reserve

the right to permit temporarily in any one of its territories [...] coca leaf chewing’, it also stipulates

that ‘coca leaf chewing must be abolished within twenty-five years from the coming into force of

this Convention’ (United Nations Secretary General 1973: 468-469). Effectively, the

international stance on cocaine assumes superiority over the autochthonous use of coca, whilst

provisions are made which enable the continued use of coca as a flavouring agent in the world’s

best selling soft-drink.

The distaste of colonial elites for coca-chewing, combined with the fact that coca did not

travel well, meant that little scientific research was carried out by Europeans until the nineteenth

century. Coca became popular with travellers to post-independence South America. Their

reports, together with consumer demand for energy-enhancing stimulants, encouraged scientific

research into the leaf across Britain, France and Germany. It was in Germany in 1860 that

cocaine was ‘definitively isolated’ from the leaf by the chemist Albert Niemann (Gootenberg

2008: xv and 20-22). Cocaine was quickly embraced by European and North American medics,

entrepreneurs, and consumers. The drug made an effective anaesthetic, and doctors, aware of

its euphoria-inducing effects, regarded it as something of a panacea for illnesses such as

melancholia, neuralgia, hysteria and other ‘nervous’ afflictions. Rather comically, doctors also

recommended cocaine as a cure for opiate addiction and alcoholism (Boucher 1991: 73-75).

Cocaine became particularly popular in the US, where it was readily available in

grocers, saloons, and as an over-the-counter remedy. Entrepreneurs were quick to exploit the

lack of regulations regarding the sale and manufacture of cocaine, as well as public demand,

and a variety of ‘tonics’ appeared. John Styth Pemberton created his own version of the French

drink Vin Mariani which was a blend of Bordeaux and coca leaves. Pemberton marketed the

drink as a ‘nerve and tonic stimulant’ and an ‘intellectual beverage’. The drink, Coca-Cola, went

on to become one of the most recognizable brand names ever (Boucher 1991: 73-75).

However, the popularity of cocaine as a legitimate substance, while spectacular, was

brief. By the early twentieth century, its addictive properties and dangerous side effects had

become apparent. The US and European nations soon began to place strict controls on coca

and cocaine for health reasons; the US completely prohibited coca leaves and cocaine within its

national borders by 1920 (Gootenberg 2008: xv-xvi). Coca-Cola claimed to drop cocaine from

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its formula in 1903 (Boucher 1991: 75). The drink still contains coca leaf, but those leaves,

imported exclusively by Stepan Company under special licence, are ‘decocainized’, that is, are

stripped of all alkaloids (Gootenberg 2004). To all intents and purposes, the coca/cocaine

distinction is valid when the interests of large multinationals are involved, yet the distinction is

not accepted when it relates to the traditional practices of indigenous peasants.

Anti-drugs measures until 2005

Coca’s current legal status in Bolivia and Peru is thus in a rather precarious position.

Unlike Colombia, where coca-chewing has little social legitimacy, Bolivia and Peru permit the

cultivation, sale, and consumption of coca leaves for traditional use, in teas, and in a number of

other products such as coca sweets. Exports of unprocessed leaves and the aforementioned

products are banned. Meanwhile, the production, sale, and consumption of the derivatives

cocaine sulphate, oxidized base, and cocaine hydrochloride are prohibited, and legal limits are

placed upon cultivation for traditional use. These legal limits, and the enforcement of them, are

perpetually controversial and fluctuate according the prevailing economic and political climate

(Negrete 2007: 41).

Despite that article twenty-six of the 1961 Single Convention states that ‘The Parties

shall so far as possible enforce the uprooting of all coca bushes which grow wild. They shall

destroy the coca bushes if illegally cultivated’ (United Nations Secretary General 1973: 306), it

was not until the 1980s that the eradication of coca leaves became a pertinent political issue in

Bolivia. A number of factors, some external to Bolivia, contributed to this. In the US, the 1947

National Security Act had ‘legitimised both legal and illegal, moral and immoral acts of foreign

policy in the cause of national survival – the protection of democracy and the American way of

life’ (Queiser Morales 1989: 147). A decline in the credibility of communism alone as a viable

threat, combined with the huge surge in cocaine use in the 1970s and 80s, meant it was

expedient for the ‘War on Drugs’ to become a familiar part of the of the political lexicon in the

US. As discussed at length by Waltraud Queiser Morales (1989), the illicit drugs trade was

framed as a threat to US security, a trade which coalesced with Marxist subversives to

undermine democracy in the US. Thus military aid and intervention in Latin America could be

justified as defence of the American way of life. Though the term ‘War on Drugs’ proliferated

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during the Nixon years, and was initially focused on marijuana and heroin, it became

increasingly centred on cocaine during the Reagan era, at a time when leftist insurgencies in

Central and South America became a cause for concern in Washington. The War on Drugs has

profoundly affected the US’s relationship with Latin America ever since.

In some cases, such as Plan Colombia, anti-drugs activities are supported by local

governments, in others, such as 1989’s Operation Just Cause in Panama, the US’s role is

rather more combative. In the case of Plan Colombia, military aid – in the form of cash and

equipment – is provided to the Colombian government by the US on the condition Colombia

uses it to eradicate coca crops and repel the leftist guerrillas of FARC, whose main source of

funding is now the cocaine trade. In the Panamanian case, however, the US invaded the

country in order to depose General Manuel Noriega, who was later convicted by a Miami court

for money-laundering, allowing drug traffickers to process cocaine and conduct their business

affairs in Panama, and enabling the passage of cocaine into the US via Panama. However,

Noriega had sustained a mutually beneficial relationship with the CIA for years, and had

provided the Nicaraguan Contras with training facilities as well as the US with information on

Cuban activities for several years prior to Operation Just Cause, leading to charges that the US

was less interested in combating the narcotics trade in Latin America than securing hegemony

in the region (Lee 1991: 178-184).

There was a significant increase in coca growth in Bolivia during the 1970s and 1980s.

The Bolivian research body Unidad de Análisis de Políticas Económicas (UDAPE) has indicated

that average annual coca yields rose from nine thousand tonnes between 1963 and 1975 to

79,000 tonnes from 1976 to 1988 (Painter 1994: 4). A number of factors influenced this

increase. The substantial rise in demand for cocaine in the US and Europe in the 1970s and

rising cocaine prices meant that coca became increasingly profitable. This coincided with both a

collapse in the cotton market, and drought and crop failure in the highlands, and some of the

previously wealthy cotton producers in Santa Cruz sought another lucrative activity. Cocaine

was an appealing option and the nearby tropical lowlands of the Chapare made a suitable site

for large-scale cultivation. Some entrepreneurs from Santa Cruz offered immediate cash

payments to highlanders whose livelihoods had been destroyed by drought, as well as

unemployed miners from Oruro and Potosí, prompting a wave of migration to the Chapare

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(Malamud-Goti 1992: 69). Dominic Streatfeild (2005: 405-407) indicates that by 1986, the price

of cocaine paste had reached an all-time high and coca fetched around 2,600USD per hectare

– dwarfing the price of other products such as oranges, which could be sold for just 650USD per

hectare. Later, the recession precipitated by Paz Estenssoro and Sánchez de Lozada’s NPE

and Decreto Supremo 21060, along with the collapse of the world market price of tin,

encouraged a further influx of immigrants to the Chapare. For immigrants with no experience of

farming, coca was an easy crop to begin with – it is relatively hardy, is harvestable reasonably

soon after seeds are sown (twelve to twenty-four months from seed), and provides frequent

subsequent yields (two to six annually) (Drug Enforcement Administration 1993). By the late

1980s it was estimated that total legal exports from Bolivia were exceeded by exports of coca

paste and cocaine (Hylton and Thomson 2007: 95-96).

The 1988 Ley 1008 is one of the most controversial pieces of legislation in Bolivian

history. The law, promulgated during the Paz Zamora presidency after significant pressure from

the US, criminalized coca production outside specific areas and above certain yields. It also

allowed for eradication schemes and the increased militarization of coca-producing regions

(Congreso Nacional de Bolivia 1988). However, the legislation was not really put into practice

until 1997 with the launch of Hugo Banzer’s Plan Dignidad. Within five years a significant

amount of coca crops had been destroyed and Dignidad was deemed a huge success.

However, critics pointed to the ‘balloon effect’, whereby production falls in one area only to

increase in another. Certainly, the drop in cocaine production in Bolivia was matched by an

increase in Colombian production. Whilst ‘alternative development’ for coca-producing areas

was widely discussed, little funding was made available and such programmes failed (Hylton

and Thomson 2007: 101-02). Plan Dignidad did little to reduce the availability or increase the

price of cocaine in North American or European cities, and offered little in the way of effective

long-term financial recompense for the peasant coca farmers. On the other hand, it undoubtedly

contributed to a climate of resentment towards the US, which, if not key to Morales’s eventual

election, certainly helped it.

Though the US has played a very visible role in eradication efforts and the militarization

of the Chapare in the guise of a significant DEA presence, Europe has also contributed to

Bolivia’s anti-drugs activities. The European Commission’s development and cooperation fund,

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EuropeAid, to which the UK contributes, ‘foresees to provide’ Bolivia with EUR234 million over

the 2007 to 2013 funding cycle. 33.5% of this money is allocated to ‘government action against

drug production and trafficking’ (European Commission 2014).1 The Commission’s country

strategy paper for Bolivia during that period notes that EU drugs policy is underpinned by the

principles of ‘shared responsibility; emphasis on multilateralism; balanced approach;

development mainstreaming; and respect for human rights’ (European Commission 2007: 23),

and emphasizes ‘comprehensive’ development and the reduction of coca production via ‘social

control mechanisms’ (European Commission 2007: 30-31). The EU’s developmental approach

is rather more conciliatory than the US’s militarized approach, and consequently the Morales

government has worked more with the former than the latter since taking office. However, the

emphasis on development, as discussed in chapter one, can be regarded as a contemporary

form of the colonial civilizing discourse, and raises questions about the links between aid and

governance. James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer’s comments regarding NGOs and western

governments’ emphasis on good governance could be applied to the EU’s role in anti-drugs

efforts in Bolivia:

NGOs are assigned a leading role as frontline agents of a participatory and democratic form of development and politics, to convince the rural poor thereby of the virtues of community-based local development and the need to reject the confrontational politics of the social movements.

(Petras and Veltmeyer 2005: 10-11)

Given the presence of European corporations in Bolivia, particularly in the extractive

industries, as will be discussed in chapter four, the EU has an interest in reducing confrontation

between social movements and the state. In other words, the EU’s approach to anti-drugs

cooperation in Bolivia could be read as the discourse of development, whereby Europe seeks to

protect its interests whilst cloaking its activity in a discourse that renders it benign.

The War on Drugs has not been an unqualified success. The principal reasons for the

persistence of the cocaine trade (as distinct from the coca trade) are economic. Most obviously,

the peasant farmers cannot afford to ignore a viable cash crop. As long as demand for cocaine

remains high enough for profits from coca farming to substantially eclipse those that can be

made from other crops, it is unlikely that farmers will turn away from coca. It should be made

clear that few farmers have become rich from coca; rather coca’s profits are such that the

1 At the time of writing, the European Commission’s main website makes no mention of funding beyond 2014.

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farmers can afford a standard of living that is marginally above subsistence. In fact, the trade is

something of a vicious circle for the farmers involved in it – while it keeps them afloat, it also

leaves them vulnerable to the vagaries of the market, particularly given the lack of diversification

on the part of many farmers. Jaime Malamud-Goti (1992: 71) argues that the participation of

peasant farmers in the cocaine business ‘does not represent the upward mobility of

campesinos... it represents a transformation from access to a viable peasant economy based

on reciprocity and barter, to one of dependency on the cash market: Camba [Santa Cruz’s]

traffickers’s [sic] economy perpetuates poverty’. Meanwhile, the small numbers of traffickers

who have become extremely wealthy through the trade are understandably motivated in

ensuring it continues.

Less immediately apparent is the way in which economic pressures on and policies of

the Bolivian government have helped to encourage the trade. For example, the Paz Estenssoro

government passed measures which allowed the Central Bank to buy US dollars at market

value, and eased rules governing remittances from abroad and money-laundering regulations

for deposits into private bank accounts. The changes meant that ‘cocaine dollars’ were taken in

to the mainstream economy (Atkins 1998: 102). A complete ‘victory’ in terms of eradication

would result in a massive increase in unemployment, both in terms of the cocaine trade and

those industries which indirectly benefit from it. It is unlikely the Bolivian economy could absorb

such unemployment (Malamud-Goti 1992: 79). Felipe E. MacGregor (1993: 10-14) illustrates

how policy instruments such as increases in interest rates and the sale of foreign debt bonds

also helped subsume cocaine dollars into the mainstream economy. The money generated

through the export of cocaine kept Bolivia’s currency reasonably stable after the fall in tin and

gas prices. However, this meant that the currency was overvalued, Bolivian products became

relatively expensive and uncompetitive both at home and abroad, and imports and contraband

increased, damaging local industry.

In addition to the economic pressures and policies which have encouraged the

persistence of the cocaine trade, the nature of eradication efforts have done little to discourage

further coca growth. Firstly, eradication targets peasant cocaleros rather than the wealthy

narcotraficantes. Setting aside for one moment the human rights implications of forced

eradication, individual cocaleros who have left the trade, be it through arrest, loss of crops,

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injury, or free will, are very easily replaced, either through economic necessity or intimidation.

The narcotraficantes, however, are less easily replaced, requiring wealth and contacts. Thus

focusing on the crops and the growers fails to make any lasting impact upon overall crop levels.

Secondly, the aerial spraying of coca plantations in order to destroy them encouraged the

cocaleros to sow smaller patches that are harder to find. Thirdly, aerial spraying of crops gave

rise to environmental complaints on the grounds that the chemicals used damage other crops

too, were potentially harmful to the local population and wildlife, and could contaminate nearby

rivers and streams. These concerns, along with the cocaleros’ efforts to plant smaller crops,

meant that aerial spraying has been largely abandoned in favour of the more labour-intensive,

less efficient manual eradication, where plantations are simply ripped from the ground.

Essentially, any coca growth reduction due to the US-backed eradication attempts have

been temporary at best, and have served only to move production from place to place, be that

within Bolivia, or across national borders. At the macro-level, the War on Drugs has failed to

end overall cocaine production, despite brief drops in production in certain countries at certain

points in time.

The emergence of the MAS

Naturally, the coca/cocaine question has made significant impact upon Bolivia’s

domestic politics. Generally speaking, the Bolivian public clearly demarcates coca from cocaine,

and even those sectors of the population that do not chew coca leaves recognise its importance

in indigenous culture. Hence eradication efforts have been viewed with some hostility, and as

foreigners penalising Bolivia for their own shortcomings by failing to recognise the nuances of

Bolivian culture. This is not to say that Bolivians claim that none of the coca grown in their

country is used for cocaine, nor that cocaine is a good thing. Indeed, cocaine is viewed by the

more traditional members of the population as a corruption of their sacred leaf, and there have

been many reports of controversial ‘community justice’ measures being meted out to those

found to be involved in the cocaine trade. However, many Bolivians feel that the demand from

North America and Europe is the driving force behind the trade, and that if that demand did not

exist then Bolivians would only grow coca for the coca market, not the cocaine market, and

punishing Bolivia for one’s own habits is hypocritical.

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The often violent nature of forced eradication has involved human rights abuses against

the cocaleros, with frequent accusations of assault, rape, and murder being levelled against the

police and military (Grupo de Trabajo en Defensa de la Hoja de Coca 2006: 20-22; Arrueta

Rodriguez 1994: 102). It should be noted that similar accusations have been made in the

opposite direction; nevertheless, such abuses, brought to the attention of the public largely

through the coca union’s protests, have engendered public sympathy for the cocaleros.

Furthermore, the Bolivian cocaleros have not been publicly linked with political and/or guerrilla

groups, as is the case with Sendero Luminoso in Peru and FARC in Colombia. This has meant

that public support for Bolivia’s cocaleros is greater than it is for their Peruvian or Colombian

counterparts. Moreover, the fact that modern Bolivian culture is more rooted in indigenous

traditions than modern Colombian culture, in which coca use has little social legitimacy,

probably makes Bolivians a little more predisposed to sympathy.

However, the situation in Bolivia is further complicated by tensions between the Yungas

cocaleros and the Chapare cocaleros. The higher alkaloid content of the variety grown in the

Chapare gives it a bitter taste that makes it less suitable for chewing, and particularly suitable

for cocaine (Klein 2011: 247). Consequently, it is widely believed that coca grown in the

Chapare is destined almost exclusively for the illegal market, and eradication schemes have

excluded Yungas coca, though it is recognised that there is a market for the cheaper Chapare

leaf amongst the poor (Lindsay 2003). The Yungas cocaleros accuse their Chapare

counterparts of exploiting indigenous culture by using the leaf’s sacred status as a smokescreen

to justify illegal activities. In turn, the Chapare growers, whose Morales-led union used the coca

leaf as what Thomas Grisaffi (2010: 427) terms an ‘empty signifier’ of sovereignty, nation and

indigenousness, have accused growers in some parts of the Yungas of working within the

cocaine trade, and of not being ‘real cocaleros’ or ‘real originarios’ (Grisaffi 2010: 435).2

Moreover, the Chapare cocaleros have argued that the division between ‘traditional’ and ‘non-

traditional’ growing areas is arbitrary, and that the Yungas growers have benefitted from forced

eradication in the Chapare (Andean Information Network 2010).

2 By ‘empty signifier’, Grisaffi means coca acts as a symbolic stand-in for indigenous identity and values. The cocaleros

do not have to engage in traditional tribal practices or wear traditional clothing, for example, since the coca leaf alone is evidence enough of their indigeneity: ‘By delegating responsibilities to the millenarian hoja sagrada (sacred leaf) the coca growers do not have to be forever present doing indigenous things, because conveniently the coca leaf stands in for the people concerned’ (Grisaffi 2010: 427). In turn, Grisaffi borrows the term from Ernesto Laclau.

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Anti-drugs measures under the MAS

Since 2006, the MAS administration has emphasized cocaine interdiction measures as

opposed to coca bush eradication. Seizures of cocaine base in 2012 were approximately two

and a half times what they were in 2006 (UNODC 2013: 42). Coca eradication has continued,

though in increased cooperation with the cocaleros. The government has put into practice the

one cato (1600m2) limit per individual farmer established by former president Carlos Mesa

(UNODC 2013: 9 and 35). Growth must be in designated zones, producers are registered and

points-of-sale closely monitored. The unions effectively self-police growth levels in cooperation

with government agencies (UNODC 2013: 27). Besides helping reduce the supply of coca to the

illicit market, the one cato limit and its enforcement increases the power of the unions and acts

as a form of market intervention by keeping the price of coca on the legal market relatively high

– theoretically discouraging the growth of coca for the cocaine trade.

No changes have been made to Ley 1008 since 2006. The law stipulates that those

found in possession of drugs for personal use should spend time in residential rehabilitation, not

prison. In practice, Bolivian police release those found in possession of drugs due to lack of

such facilities. There exists no clear demarcation between amounts that are considered

possession with intent to supply and those for personal use. The MAS planned to criminalize

possession for personal use, though a shortage of prison spaces has prevented this. Instead,

system of fines or community service may be implemented (Andean Information Network 2012).

Though the MAS recently postponed modifying the law until 2015 (Quenallata 2014), all

evidence would point toward more stringent, not more liberal, laws.

However, the MAS have affected change at international level since taking office. The

party had long campaigned for the removal of limits on coca growth, the international

recognition of coca as a symbol of Andean culture, and the removal of the coca leaf from the list

of ‘drugs’ as defined by the UN Single Convention 1961. Bolivia withdrew from the Convention

in 2011 in protest at coca’s status, rejoining in early 2013 with a reservation exempting Bolivia

from the prohibition of traditional use. Coca use remains banned internationally (Transnational

Institute Drug Law Reform: 2013). The public discourse of Morales and the MAS has been firm

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in both its rejection of the notion that coca is cocaine and its assertion of the idea that cocaine is

a corruption of the sacred leaf.

Coca growth has decreased under Morales, albeit after a spike in growth rates during

his first three years in office. A UN report on coca cultivation stated that coca growth decreased

by seven per cent in 2012, and twelve per cent in 2011. The study found that the area under

cultivation stood at 25,300 hectares in 2012 (UNODC 2013: 7). A long-awaited EU-funded

government report into the demand for coca established that 14,705 hectares would satisfy the

legal market (Secretaría de Coordinación CONALTID 2013: 2). The figure, higher than the limit

set out by Ley 1008 but lower than the 20,000 hectares the cocaleros have mooted, would

suggest that current growth levels surpass the demand for legal coca.

Alternative strategies and discussions elsewhere in the Americas

As noted earlier, elsewhere in the Americas debates and moves towards liberalization

of drug laws are becoming more mainstream. The Uruguayan senate has approved a law

allowing the strictly-regulated sale of small amounts of cannabis to residents of the country,

allowing each person to grow a maximum of six plants or purchase 480 grams a year (Poder

Legislativo de la República Oriental de Uruguay 2013). In Mexico, which as a transit point is

suffering the brunt of drug-related violence, a law proposed by then president Felipe Calderón,

which decriminalized possession of up to 5g of cannabis, 500mg of cocaine, and 50mg of

heroin, was passed by congress in 2009 (Zamudio Angeles 2011: 3). In 2009, the Argentine

Supreme Court deemed the criminalization of and custodial sentences for drug use for personal

possession unconstitutional. Legal reforms are now pending (Touzé 2010). In the US, where

medicinal marijuana has been permitted in some states for a number of years, the states of

Colorado and Washington have recently legalized the sale of cannabis for personal recreational

use (McKay 2014). In November 2014 voters in Alaska approved recreational use of cannabis

for those aged 21 or above (Botelho 2015).

In addition to these legislative changes is the growing level of debate surrounding the

War on Drugs. A number of high profile Latin Americans, including former presidents Ernesto

Zedillo of Mexico, Fernando Enrique Cardoso of Brazil, and Ricardo Lagos of Chile are

members of the Global Commission on Drugs Policy, a group which holds that the War on

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Drugs is a failure, and advocates alternative approaches, up to and including the

decriminalization of drug use (Global Commission on Drugs Policy 2014).

The MAS and alternative strategies

While of course this chapter is concerned with coca and cocaine, and in the case of

Uruguay and the US, it is marijuana laws that have been relaxed, it is fair to say that such legal

changes and increased debates indicate that there is an increasingly liberal attitude toward drug

possession on the part of legislators and influential individuals. Nevertheless, given suggestions

upon the election of Morales that the former coca farmer would usher in a permissive attitude

towards drugs, it would be politically difficult for the MAS to attempt to relax Bolivia’s drug laws.

Though the party publicly opposes the War on Drugs, its public discourse has focused on the

militarized nature of interdiction rather than the validity of existing drug laws. It is therefore

unlikely that Bolivia will move to join the trend towards liberalizing drugs laws. It would appear

that, increased cooperation with the cocaleros notwithstanding, counter-narcotics measures

under the MAS are not radically different to those of earlier administrations and the party’s

strategies cannot be considered a real challenge to the War on Drugs, inasmuch as it takes a

prohibitionist approach and the party’s actions are far from being a part of alternative discourses

and policies being articulated elsewhere.

The transculturation of coca

The coca leaf can thus be viewed as an example of transculturation. Europeans took

local knowledge and practices about the leaf back to Europe, and reshaped that knowledge

using European scientific practices to present the leaf as a European ‘discovery’ in the New

World. The leaf was separated from its Andean cultural roots, and reflected European medical

and entrepreneurial demands. The later moral panic surrounding narcotic use redefined the leaf

for Europeans once more. Essentially, the coca leaf was, and remains, Andean cultural

material. Cocaine, on the other hand, is a European invention, and in a similar fashion to the

invention of Latin America itself, it was assumed that European forms of knowledge are

universal, and thus were imposed upon local forms of knowledge and cultural practices.

Autochthonous cultures have been obliged to engage with the European construction of the

leaf, debate its social legitimacy, and articulate their own conceptions of it in opposition to

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Europe. In the context of the continuing War on Drugs, and the MAS government, this process

of transculturation has entered a new phase, whereby Bolivia’s indigenous groups have a

stronger voice upon the world stage. Accordingly, a key area of inquiry in the next section is the

extent to which, if any, the UK press have adapted to this change.

Coca/cocaine in the British press

This section provides an analysis of the thirty-seven articles appearing in the UK press

between 1998 and 2010 that focus upon coca/cocaine and mention Evo Morales. The

coca/cocaine distinction is not made especially clear. Of the thirty-seven articles analysed here,

twenty-four, or 64.86%, make some form of reference to the distinction. Though that constitutes

a clear majority, references to the distinction are often vague, or de-emphasized, as will be

discussed below. Generally, there is a poor grasp of the legal status of coca, and the

differences between legalisation and decriminalisation. There is also a tendency to frame the

coca/cocaine issue in terms of a Bolivia versus US or Latin America versus US narrative. Latin

America is often treated as a homogenous entity, with minor cultural and ideological differences

between different countries, and differences are discussed in terms of the region’s relationship

with the US. There is a tendency to unthinkingly accept US hegemony as a reality, and even

when that hegemony is viewed negatively, there is little suggestion that intra-Latin American

relations can be independent of the US. Furthermore, understanding of Bolivia’s cultural and

political context is generally fairly superficial, and the country is viewed in terms of wider Latin

American political and cultural trends. These patterns correspond to Mignolo’s discussion of the

region’s homogenous Latinidad being established in opposition to the Anglo North.

The coca/cocaine distinction

As stated earlier, the coca/cocaine distinction is not always made especially clear by the

UK press. Table 3.1 shows the proportion of coca-cocaine related articles that refer to traditional

uses of coca. This includes any reference whatsoever to non-cocaine use of coca, including

cursory references to medicinal or cultural use, and instances in which terms such as ‘traditional

use’ are unexplained.

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TABLE 3.1: REFERENCES TO TRADITIONAL USE OF COCA IN THE BRITISH PRESS

Articles referencing traditional use

TOTAL Number %

Guardian 8 5 62.5%

Financial Times 3 1 33.3%

Economist 6 4 66.7%

Independent 5 4 80.0%

Observer 4 3 75.0%

The Times 3 1 33.3%

Independent on Sunday 2 2 100.0%

Daily Telegraph 1 1 100.0%

Daily Mail 1 1 100.0%

Sunday Times 1 1 100.0%

The Express 1 1 100.0%

Sunday Telegraph 1 0 0.0%

Express On Sunday 1 0 0.0%

Total 37 24 64.86%

As noted above, twenty-four articles make at least some reference to traditional or

domestic use of coca. Nevertheless, it would appear that the British press only partially engages

with the Andean perspective on coca. Many of the references to traditional uses are rather

vague: ‘Peru and Bolivia, the second and third producers, rely on manual eradication, since

coca is more culturally sensitive in those countries due to its use as a traditional stimulant’

(Financial Times 7 February 2007: 8) and ‘[Morales] expelled US drug agents two years ago,

saying he could achieve a "zero cocaine" policy by allowing farmers to grow the crop for

medicinal and cultural uses’ (The Observer 15 August 2010).

One reference to traditional use buries the region’s pre-European history: ‘Chewing

coca leaves has been part of the culture here for 500 years’ (The Observer 16 September 2001:

9), suggesting that either nothing happened in Bolivia until European contact, or that anything

that did happen before 1492 is not part of legitimate history. Others imply that the coca leaf has

been reinvented more recently: ‘Under Leftist, Bush-baiting new president Evo Morales, [Bolivia

seeks] to establish coca- from which cocaine is derived- as 'a sacred symbol of Andean

Amazonic cultures'’ (Daily Mail 6 April 2007) and ‘[Morales] campaigned to rehabilitate the

maligned coca leaf as a sacred Inca symbol with medicinal and ceremonial properties…

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Morales, however, has promised zero tolerance for cocaine, which he considers a malign

perversion of the coca leaf’ (The Observer 6 September 2009). Both examples imply that

Morales has created the idea of coca leaf chewing as a traditional practice, thereby subtly

delegitimizing the Andean point of view. The Daily Mail example is from an article about the

‘playboy-diarist’ Taki Theodoracopulos’s support for ‘Bolivian demands’ that Coca-Cola remove

the word coca from its name. The article goes on to imply that Theodoracopulos’s position is

based on his own past use of cocaine, further undermining the coca/cocaine distinction. The

Guardian (15 April 2010) states that ‘Bolivia tried to wipe out the leaf at Washington’s behest.

But that was before Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian and coca grower, was elected president in

2006, and has since championed coca as a crop with legitimate uses’. Once more, it is

suggested that ‘legitimate uses’ have little or no historical traction.

Furthermore, some references to the coca/cocaine distinction de-emphasize the

traditional use of coca, or question its legitimacy, such as the Financial Times’ reference to ‘so-

called traditional uses’ (11 March 2008: 10), and the Economist’s more pointed ‘The new

constitution passed last year calls coca part of Bolivia’s “cultural heritage”. No matter that

cocaine is not’ (26 June 2010). The Economist especially cannot conceive of Andean forms of

knowledge and cultural practices as being as equally legitimate as European ones.3 Another

article, ‘Bolivia’s man of the people issues cocaine challenge’, opens thus:

A former coca farmer, who will be sworn in today as Bolivia’s first indigenous president, has alarmed Washington by vowing to legalise the cultivation of the plant whose leaves are the primary ingredient in cocaine. Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian who herded llamas as a boy, has challenged America to eradicate its own tobacco fields before forcing Bolivia to give up a valuable cash crop that has traditionally been used for medicinal purposes.

(The Sunday Times 22 January 2006: 27)

The article’s first paragraph and title firmly defines the coca leaf in, and privileges,

European terms. Even though ‘medicinal purposes’ are referred to relatively early in the article,

the legitimacy of such use is diluted, both by foregrounding cocaine, and implying that the

cultivation of coca in Bolivia is completely illegal. The report mentions Bolivia’s ‘estimated

80,000 acres of coca plantations’ and status as ‘the world’s third largest producer’. Though it

later expands on traditional uses, and Morales’s plans for industrialization of coca, by failing to

3 It should be noted that, as pointed out in chapter two, the Economist takes an explicit pro-legalisation editorial line on

drugs, in keeping with its general advocacy of free market economic policies. One could speculate that for that reason, the coca-cocaine distinction is deemed irrelevant by the weekly.

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clarify the legal status of the plant within Bolivia it suggests all 80,000 acres are currently illegal.

The wording in the first line makes it seem that Morales is seeking to legalise cultivation within

Bolivia, rather than seeking to change the UN Single Convention classification of coca.

Moreover, it labels Bolivia a producer, without reference to European or North American use of

cocaine, shifting responsibility for the European invention onto Bolivia. The language depicts

Morales as combative – ‘cocaine challenge’, ‘alarmed Washington’, ‘challenged America’ – but

the article is somewhat sympathetic to traditional use, noting it has been used ‘for centuries’.

The portrayal of Morales as antagonistic is tempered by noting that the US is ‘determined to

destroy’ Bolivia’s coca, and a reference to ‘Washington’s rhetoric’. The article also delegitimizes

the idea that coca leaves can be used an ingredient in a variety of products: ‘Morales claims to

have plans for “industrialising” and “commercialising” coca for a variety of legal uses, including

the manufacture of toothpaste’. The use of the word ‘claims’ and the fact that industrialising and

commercialising are in inverted commas, subtly undermines Morales’s position, yet offers no

evidence to the contrary.

An article appearing in The Times regarding the increased use of paco in the poor

areas of Buenos Aires offers no explanation for the increase other than Evo Morales:4

Some experts believe that the "No to cocaine, yes to coca" policy of Evo Morales, the Bolivian President, which led to a lifting of restrictions on growing coca plants, is adding to the influx. "The problem is that Evo Morales doesn't have the capacity to control the huge territory of Bolivia where coca can be produced for illegal means, so the chances of failure are quite high," Giovanni Quaglia, the regional representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said.

(The Times 28 April 2008: 32)

The article fails to explain the difference between coca and cocaine, and hence the reason for

Morales’s policy, making it seem as though Morales has capriciously allowed more growth of a

dangerous plant.

In the Guardian, a travel writer discussing La Paz’s illegal cocaine bars that are popular with

foreign backpackers says:

This new trend of 'cocaine tourism' can be put down to a combination of Bolivia's notoriously corrupt public officials, the chaotic "anything goes" attitude of La Paz, and the national example of President Evo Morales, himself a coca grower. (Coca is the leaf, and cocaine is the highly manufactured and refined powder).

(Guardian G2 19 August 2009)

4 Paco is a cheap drug derived from the manufacture of cocaine.

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Besides the obvious problematic stereotypes of a corrupt and chaotic Latin America, the

statement essentially dismisses the coca/cocaine distinction, and fundamentally implies that

Morales is an advocate of cocaine use.

An article in the Economist states that:

Evo Morales, long the leader of Bolivia’s cocaleros (coca farmers), won a landslide victory in a presidential election in December. He says he will halt forcible eradication. He also says that he opposes cocaine and the drug trade, but wants to promote new uses of coca. These include pharmaceuticals and, improbably, biscuits, bread and chewing gum... Mr Morales, for his part, knows that more coca would boost Bolivia’s drug industry.

(Economist 18 March 2006: 4)

Most obviously, with the use of the word ‘improbably’, the Economist dismisses the idea that

coca can be used as an ingredient in confectionary, though such items are already for sale.

Moreover, though the Economist mentions non-cocaine uses of the coca leaf, references to

‘new’ uses imply that non-cocaine uses have no historical traction, and thereby ignore a long-

established part of Bolivian culture.

The most notable failure to clarify, or refer to the coca/cocaine distinction appears in the

Financial Times. The article is headlined ‘Bolivia braced for violent protests as coca battle

enters critical stage: The president [Jorge Quiroga] is clashing with farmers in his determination

to eradicate the illegal crop and rid the country of its 20-year ‘drug trafficking stigma’’ (Financial

Times 22 November 2001: 13), and contained within the main text is ‘US-sponsored efforts to

wipe out coca leaf in the Chapare… have entered a critical stage as the task of removing the

illegal crop nears completion’. The article also refers to ‘die-hard opponents of the government’s

ban on growing coca’. It is possible that the Financial Times has assumed knowledge on the

part of the reader regarding the coca/cocaine distinction and the legal status of coca in Bolivia.

Nevertheless, for the reader who is unfamiliar with the distinction, the report implies that coca is

simply an illegal plant, which, given the European construction of the leaf, would make sense to

the uninformed reader. The second of the above excerpts is slightly more nuanced, in that it

refers to Chapare coca specifically – most of which would have been illegal at the time of

publication. However, this would also require prior knowledge on the part of the reader. No prior

knowledge potentially makes references to ‘farmers’ leader Evo Morales’, ‘Other powerful

workers’ groups’, and ‘The defiant farmers’ groups, representing 25,000 families’ very

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confusing. A less knowledgeable reader may wonder why the farmers of an illegal crop are so

powerful and why they have any legitimacy whatsoever. Rather interestingly, the word cocaine

is not mentioned at all. This omission is open to two competing interpretations: one, since the

article does not specifically link the word ‘coca’ to the word ‘cocaine’, it treats coca in Bolivia as

a completely separate issue, thus upholding the distinction; or two, that by not referring to

cocaine at all, the article simply treats ‘coca’ as a synonym for ‘cocaine’. Given the repetition of

the term ‘illegal’, the references to drug trafficking, and a ‘$500m-a-year business’, the second

interpretation is more convincing.

A very brief, yet problematic, reference to Bolivia and Morales appears in an Observer

article which is chiefly concerned with Mexico’s decriminalization of drug possession:

The US is more used to drug legislation worries originating further south in Latin America. In Bolivia, President Evo Morales made the legalisation of the cultivation of coca leaf (the raw material for cocaine) a key part of the platform that got him elected in December, and his administration is considering passing a possession law like Mexico's.

(Observer 30 April 2006)

This ignores the Andean conception of coca, despite this being the very reason Morales

seeks to have the leaf made legal under international law. In doing so, the article both privileges

European perspectives and misrepresents MAS policy, implying Morales seeks to legalise coca

in order to produce cocaine.

An Observer special report on increasing moves to decriminalize drug possession

throughout Latin America briefly refers to Bolivia, and Morales’s moves to ‘rehabilitate the

maligned coca leaf as a sacred Inca symbol with medicinal and ceremonial properties’

(Observer 6 September 2009). This implies that Morales has single-handedly decided that the

coca leaf should be regarded as a sacred symbol, rather than that he espouses a view that has

widespread historical traction in the Andean region. The article makes a point of mentioning that

Morales has ‘offered coca tea to visiting dignitaries’, as though this is highly unusual rather than

just standard hospitality in La Paz, where the average altitude of 3650 metres above sea level

means many flying directly into the city suffer from the effects of altitude sickness. The article

does note that Morales ‘has promised zero tolerance for cocaine, which he considers a malign

perversion of the coca leaf’. The article thus references the coca/cocaine distinction, yet

undermines the distinction by implying traditional use is an invention of Morales, and by

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including Morales’s lobbying of the UN to have the coca leaf removed from the list of poisonous

species found in the UN 1961 Single Convention as an example of drug decriminalization

policy. Once more, the European interpretation of coca takes precedence.

Somewhat surprisingly given the newspaper’s conservative reputation, the single Daily

Telegraph article used in this section (20 March 2006) clearly demarcates coca from cocaine. It

opens by noting that Bolivia is advocating the legalisation of coca plants ‘despite them being

vilified by the United States as the source of the world’s drug industry’. While the text

immediately makes the connection between coca and cocaine, it implies, through use of the

term vilify, that the US is being rather unreasonable. The article gives equal weight to Andean

and European conceptions of coca, and ascribes far more legitimacy to traditional uses of coca

than other articles in this corpus, and certainly does not erase the country’s pre-colonial history:

‘Indigenous communities have chewed its leaf here since 2,500BC and brewed it as tea to

boost their strength and stave off hunger and tiredness’. The article indicates the pro-coca

campaigners are not pro-cocaine thus: ‘Under the slogan “coca is not cocaine”’, and notes that

Morales has ‘vowed to crack down on cocaine’. The article mentions the nutritional properties of

coca and lists the potential for mass-produced coca-based products, albeit with caveats such as

‘claim’ and ‘supposedly’. Nevertheless, despite its extensive treatment of the coca/cocaine

distinction, the article closes as it opens – with reference to the US’s stance, thereby

undermining the Bolivian outlook: ‘The idea that more coca can be grown in Bolivia without

boosting more cocaine production is “pie in the sky”, US officials say’.

Meanwhile, though both of the Independent on Sunday’s articles focus on cocaine, not

coca, each makes clear the distinction:

[Morales] refuses to ban the consumption of coca leaves, which country people regard as gifts from heaven: the indigenous have been chewing them for thousands of years as an aid to the survival at 14,000 feet in the perishingly bleak highlands which surround [La Paz]. Their teeth are sometimes discoloured but otherwise they have come to little harm.

(Independent on Sunday 27 May 2007)

and

President Evo Morales of Bolivia- criticised by the US for defending Bolivians’ practice of chewing coca leaves to assuage hunger and altitude sickness- wants to allow every Bolivian family around the city of Cochabamba to cultivate coca bushes for their own use.

(Independent on Sunday 17 January 2010: 32-35)

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Table 3.2 adjusts the data from Table 3.1 to account for the de-legitimization of the

Andean perspective on coca.

TABLE 3.2: REFERENCES TO TRADITIONAL USE OF COCA IN THE BRITISH PRESS WITHOUT DE-LEGITIMIZING TRADITIONAL USE

Articles referencing traditional use without de-legitimizing traditional use

TOTAL Number %

Guardian 8 3 37.5%

Financial Times 3 1 33.3%

Economist 6 2 33.3%

Independent 5 3 60.0%

Observer 4 1 25.0%

The Times 3 1 33.3%

Independent on Sunday 2 2 100.0%

Daily Telegraph 1 1 100.0%

Daily Mail 1 0 0.0%

Sunday Times 1 0 0.0%

The Express 1 0 0.0%

Sunday Telegraph 1 0 0.0%

Express On Sunday 1 0 0.0%

Total 37 14 37.8%

The adjusted data indicate that, although the coca/cocaine distinction is regularly

mentioned by the UK press, there is an overall tendency to treat the distinction as a less

legitimate interpretation of the coca leaf than the European interpretation of the leaf as simply

cocaine.

It would appear that the British press has a poor understanding of the legal status of

coca within Bolivia, or at least the status of the leaf is poorly explained to the readers. Some

instances of this have already been described above. The Guardian coverage is particularly

unclear:

The favourite in Bolivia’s December presidential elections, Evo Morales, has pledged to legalise the cultivation of coca leaves… Mr Morales began his political ascent as a leader of peasants, winning them the right to farm small amounts for local use.

(Guardian 22 September 2005)

and ‘[…] Morales made legalisation of the cultivation of coca leaf (the raw material for cocaine)

a key part of the platform that got him elected in November, and his administration is

considering a possession law like Mexico’s’ (Guardian 5 May 2006). Both excerpts suggest that

Morales seeks to legalise coca cultivation within Bolivia, where it is of course already legal,

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albeit subject to restrictions, not that he seeks to have the classification of the plant under the

UN Single Convention amended. Moreover, the first of the two excerpts is confusing,

suggesting cultivation is currently illegal, without clarifying how farmers are allowed to farm

small amounts. It also suggests that prior to Morales ‘winning them the right to farm small

amounts’, there was no legal coca growth in Bolivia at all. The claim that the MAS government

is considering a ‘possession law’ is interesting. It is simply an aside in an article chiefly

concerned with Mexico’s moves to legalise possession of small amounts of drugs. Given the

context, the article implies the Bolivian government is considering loosening restrictions on drug

possession. As noted earlier, though legislative changes have not yet been made, all evidence

indicates that the MAS will make possession laws more restrictive. Hence, the claim that the

government is considering a ‘possession law’, whilst not inaccurate per se, is entirely

misleading.


Resistance to the Andean interpretation of coca is also evident through discourse

representation. Table 3.3a shows that there are a total of 85 instances of discourse

representation in the 37 coca-cocaine articles published between January 2000 and the

December 2005 election. The table examines official discourse, cocalero discourse, third-party

Bolivian discourse (sub-divided into pro-coca and anti-coca), US official discourse, the

discourse of European/US analysts, the discourse of other Latin American state officials, the

discourse of the general Bolivian public, and a miscellaneous category under ‘other’. Off icial

discourse includes statements made by Bolivian government officials and actors connected to

state institutions such as the armed forces. Cocalero discourse includes statements made by all

representatives of the coca growers. Statements made by Evo Morales are provided as a

subset of cocalero figures, and are not added to the total. Third-party discourse includes

members of the Bolivian public that have a strong view on coca, as well as public figures and

organizations with no official connection to the state or the cocaleros, while the Bolivian public

includes statements made by members of the public with no strong feelings on the coca leaf.

US official discourse includes statements made by US government officials and actors

connected to state institutions. European/US analysts includes the discourse of employees of

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European or US-based think-tanks or business intelligence consultancies. Latin American

official discourse includes statements made by government officials and actors connected to the

state institutions of other Latin American countries.

TABLE 3.3A: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH COCA-COCAINE RELATED ARTICLES 2000-2005

All papers Total

DD DD(S) ID UNSIG

State/government officials 7 2 5 0 14

Cocaleros 11 2 11 0 24


Anti-coca(lero) third party 0 0 0 0 0

Pro-coca(lero) third party 0 0 1 0 1



Other Latin American state officials 0 0 3 0 3


Other 7 1 4 0 12

Total 39 10 36 0 85

As indicated by Table 3.3a, between 2000 and 2005 cocalero discourse is featured

more frequently than official Bolivian discourse, with 24 instances of the former and 14 of the

latter. Moreover, there are also fewer instances of US official discourse, other Latin American

official discourse, and European/US analysts discourse. It appears that the cocaleros are

regarded as a legitimate party to the discussion of the War on Drugs by the British press.

However, a closer look at boundary maintenance in relation to all sources demonstrates that

boundary maintenance is lower in relation to US officials, European/US analysts, and other

Latin American officials. More significantly, ID accounts for 58.33 per cent of US official

discourse representation, 80 per cent of European/US analysts discourse representation, and

all other Latin American official discourse representation. In contrast, less than half of cocalero

discourse representation, 45.83 per cent is rendered as ID. This would suggest that there is

some resistance to incorporating cocalero discourse into primary discourse, and a greater

degree of legitimacy is given to discourse which does not challenge the orthodoxy of the War on

Drugs, and therefore the European interpretation of the coca leaf. Moreover, a significant

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majority of the discourse of Morales is rendered as DD, though it should be noted that official

Bolivian discourse is also treated with a high degree of boundary maintenance.

Of course, after the December 2005 election, cocalero discourse and official discourse

are no longer at odds with one another. Therefore it makes little sense to examine cocalero

discourse and official discourse as competing voices. Nevertheless, it is still worth looking at the

instances of both sets of discourse as separate entities for the period 2005-2010 in order to see

to what extent the cocaleros remain a set of independent actors, or conversely the extent to

which discussion of coca/cocaine becomes the domain of the state. Table 3.4a provides the

relevant data:

TABLE 3.4A: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH COCA-COCAINE RELATED ARTICLES 2005-2010

All papers Total

DD DD(S) ID UNSIG



Cocaleros 0 0 0 0 0







Other 24 10 22 0 56

Total 76 53 95 0 224

Official discourse for this period is the same as the previous period, in that the official

institutions and public roles are the same, even if the identity of the actors has changed.

Cocalero discourse now means the discourse of any cocalero representative except Morales.

Statements made by Evo Morales are now included as a subset of state/government officials,

and are not added to the total. US official discourse as a proportion of the total has increased

slightly, while the proportion of cocalero discourse has been completely subsumed into official

discourse, which has increased to 27.68 per cent of the total.

Boundary maintenance is much lower in relation to US official discourse than Bolivian

official discourse, with 51.16 per cent of US official discourse being rendered as ID compared to

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just 38.71 per cent of Bolivian official discourse, though it should be noted that 45.83 per cent of

the discourse of Morales is ID. This indicates that there remains some resistance to discourse

which challenges the European interpretation of the coca leaf, limiting the extent of

transculturation.

US hegemony and the colonial difference

In a short report regarding Morales’s expulsion of US DEA agents, entitled ‘Drugs blow’,

the Express On Sunday states:

The White House war on cocaine cartels has been dealt a blow by president Evo Morales of Bolivia. He has ordered drugs agents from the United States out of his country, which is the world’s third largest producer of the drug. He has accused the agents of plotting against his government.

(Express On Sunday 16 November 2008)

The report explicitly positions Morales against US interests, particularly through the

repetition of the term ‘blow’. By stating that Bolivia, as ‘his country’, is a major cocaine producer,

the report implies that Morales himself is a threat to US interests. There is no suggestion that

the US-led War on Drugs could be counter to Bolivia’s interests. Rather, Morales sounds

vaguely paranoid as he ‘[accuses] the agents of plotting against his government’. In suggesting

that Morales is a threat to US interests, the piece asserts the US’s unquestionable right to wage

its War on Drugs, and Mignolo’s assertion that Latin Americans are seen as second-class

Americans rings true. Moreover, it neatly defines the country as a producer, but elides Europe

and the US’s role as consumers.

Both of the coca/cocaine articles from the Independent on Sunday discuss the War on

Drugs in general terms. The first appears on 27 May 2007, the second on 17 January 2010. The

two fairly lengthy articles are comment pieces, though they appear in the world news section,

and both proclaim the end of the War on Drugs. In the 2007 article, campaign is gleefully

described as ‘slowly collapsing like a Zeppelin with a puncture’, and two and a half years later

as ‘being buried in the same fashion as it was born - amid bloodshed, confusion, corruption and

scandal’. Both are critical of US policy: ‘long-forecast failure’, ‘forcibly suppressing’ (27 May

2007), ‘disastrous ‘war on drugs’’, and ‘[the US’s] fatal Prohibition error’ (17 January 2010).

Where other papers portray Morales as combative, the Independent on Sunday paints him as

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simply resolute: ‘his refusal to allow foreigners to dictate Bolivia’s policy’, and ‘the determination

of Morales’ (27 May 2007). Overall, the two articles are sympathetic to Morales’s rejection of US

policy. While care is taken to provide plenty of statistics, there is a lack of transparency

regarding the origin of those cited in the 2010 article. Bolivia is labeled a producer of cocaine in

the 2010 article, and US consumption is mentioned in both. This leads us to the most interesting

aspect of the two articles – and something which recurs in other articles. While there are many

articles in this sample that discuss and/or criticize the US’s role in Bolivia, few question the UK’s

role. The 2007 article notes the difficulties the British police have had in reducing drug use in

Britain, but does not mention the UK’s international role in reducing production. Just as Pratt’s

capitalist vanguard employed anti-conquest rhetoric to criticize the Creole elite whilst supporting

British economic intervention, the UK press draws attention to the US’s militarized measures in

the War on Drugs whilst ignoring the UK’s role in reducing the growth of coca. This echoes

British assertions of the imperial difference between Britain and Spain, as described by Mignolo,

albeit implicitly so, and clearly reflects a shift in the colonial matrix of power. The 2007 article

refers to Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia as producers of cocaine. While it does not explicitly label

Britain a consumer, it does – albeit briefly – discuss drug use in Britain, citing user numbers and

the number and length of drug-related prison sentences. Oddly, despite the rest of the article

being about cocaine, the article mentions the UK street price of heroin, not cocaine. The

Independent on Sunday tacitly asserts the imperial difference between Britain and the US. It is

not so much that the newspaper explicitly states that Britain would be a better, more civilized

influence than the US, but the relentless narrative of US dominance over Latin America allows

the significant role of Britain and other European powers, in the guise of the EU, to go

unnoticed, and hence unchallenged. Despite these failings, the Independent on Sunday articles

provide far more detail than most of the articles in this part of the corpus. It attempts to account

for the interplay of culture, economics, and politics which makes coca/cocaine such a complex

issue. There is also an attempt to ground the articles in fact – though of course the usefulness

of facts and figures is limited when presented in a selective, tendentious manner. Nevertheless,

both articles adhere to the US v Latin America narrative that we see over and over again. This

both elides British and European involvement in anti-drugs efforts, and the desire of Latin

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American governments to suppress the drugs trade, and treats Latin America as a homogenous

unit eternally at odds with the US.

The title of the Daily Telegraph’s article ‘Bolivia urges UN to defy Washington and

legalise coca’ (20 March 2006), is rather interesting, as, without offering any value judgement, it

is suggestive of a principal-agent problem, in that it appears the UN is subordinate to the US,

not the other way around. The Daily Telegraph appears to take for granted the US’s authority in

this matter, and as such implies US hegemony is inevitable, in the same way that the logic of

coloniality made imperialism seem natural. Nevertheless, the article itself is not entirely

unsympathetic to Bolivia’s position and, as noted earlier, gives equal weight to the Andean and

European conceptions of coca.

An Observer article (16 September 2001) revisits the well-worn image of Latin America

as a chaotic and unstable region, and mentions the British left’s favourite symbol of Latin

American politics, Che Guevara. The article, promoting the documentary ‘Coca or Death’,

discusses anti-eradication protests taking place in La Paz and is very sympathetic to the

protestors. All quotes in the article from those who are ‘pro-coca’, and unequivocally lays the

blame for the situation with the US: ‘As the country struggles with its worst ever economic crisis-

thanks to a US-sponsored coca eradication plan that is costing Bolivia $600 million (£428m) a

year...’, and ‘Che Guevara tried to start a revolution in Bolivia and paid for it with his life. Now,

more than 30 years later, the American war on drugs has finally brought Bolivia to the brink of a

popular uprising’. The linking of Guevara’s failed Bolivian revolution and the 2001 protests is

rather odd, since they have nothing to do with each other. However, making the association with

the romanticized figure of Guevara allows the Observer to fit the protests in with a narrative that

portrays Latin America as a homogenous unit forever locked in a battle of wills with its northern

neighbour. The claim that the US’s insistence on eradicating coca is the cause of the country’s

economic woes is at best simplistic and worst wilfully misleading. It is not incorrect to say that

Plan Dignidad had an adverse effect on the Bolivian economy, nor that the eradication project

was instigated at the behest of the US. However, the reasons for the Bolivian economic crisis at

the beginning of the century are far more varied than just Plan Dignidad. An explanation of the

political and economic climate that led to the election of Morales and the MAS has already been

provided in chapter two, and while Plan Dignidad was important, it was far from the only factor.

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There is no need to cite Plan Dignidad as the sole cause of the crisis in order to engender

sympathy for the protesters. The article could make clear that Plan Dignidad is an aspect of the

crisis, and not reduce the seriousness of the situation. However, by laying the blame for

Bolivia’s economic woes at the US’s door, the Observer not only ignores the complexity of

Bolivian politics and the various political and social actors with competing agendas, but

obscures the role of the foreign – including British – corporations which earned vast profits from

the country’s natural resources upon the implementation of Decreto Supremo 21060. As noted

above, the article plays on images of Latin America as chaotic and unstable: ‘Instead [the

peasants] march almost daily on large cities such as La Paz, where poor farmers explode sticks

of dynamite and shout anti-government slogans. ‘Coca or death’ has become a refrain’. Oddly,

for an article that is clearly sympathetic to the pro-coca cause, it does not really make clear the

nature of coca use in Bolivia, nor the coca/cocaine distinction. It alludes to the distinction, and

so has been counted as one of the articles which refer to traditional uses, but the references are

vague. On three occasions, the article notes that the leaf is sacred to Bolivians – though one of

these instances are contained within inverted commas, which effectively act as shorthand for

‘so-called’, hence delegitimizing Bolivian beliefs. The most explicit reference to the distinction is

thus: ‘Chewing coca leaves has been part of the culture here for 500 years. “We know nothing

of cocaine,” they insist’. As noted earlier, this essentially buries the region’s pre-colonial history,

and suggests, in keeping with Mignolo’s work, that it did not exist in any meaningful sense until

it was known to the West. Nevertheless, the article does do one thing which many articles

analysed here fail to do. Like other reports, it refers to Bolivia as a producer of cocaine. Unlike

most of the others, it explicitly refers to European and US consumption of cocaine, noting that

consumption has not fallen since the launch of Plan Dignidad. This indicates that Europe and

the US have as much a part to play in the industry as Bolivia, rather than sole responsibility for

the existence of cocaine being Bolivia’s.

The chaos of nature

An Observer interview with Jessica Jordan, a former Miss Bolivia who is now a MAS

official in Beni, portrays the country as chaotic and crime-ridden. The title and sub-heading of

the article set the tone for the rest of the article: ‘Bolivian model battles ruthless cocaine barons:

A British-born ex model has been appointed viceroy in a smuggler-infested border region’

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(Observer 15 August 2010). The article is rather sensationalist and mentions ‘grim-faced

soldiers’, ‘ruthless narco-traffickers’, ‘jungles and slums’, ‘cocaine barons’, and ‘illegal logging

and gold mining’. The article describes Beni as ‘a remote and volatile drug-infested province’,

and says that Jordan has ‘accepted the possibility of assassination that came with the job’, even

though it goes on to quote her as saying she would ‘like to change the image of Beni as a

pirate, trafficking area’. The overall effect is to conjure up images of a lawless region where

social order has completely broken down.

Another interview with Jordan in the Sunday Telegraph (27 June 2010) also portrays

Bolivia as chaotic and full of criminals. The article describes Beni as ‘a restive jungle backwater

plagued with Right-wing separatists, ethnic Indian militants, and Colombian drug traffickers’,

and ‘a lawless and chaotic frontier zone where Colombian drug trafficking gangs operate huge

cocaine refineries and clandestine airstrips’. The article also notes that ‘Foreign mercenaries

from the Balkans have also been active in assisting separatist militias, and there are reports that

Shining Path terrorists from neighbouring Peru are taking refuge in Beni's remote marshlands’.

The article, while noting Morales is a former coca farmer, does not touch on the coca/cocaine

distinction. It implies Bolivia is a backward, feudal society, calling it Morales’s ‘fiefdom’.

A third interview with Jordan, featured in the Express (29 June 2010), is largely similar

to the Sunday Telegraph one. Once more, Beni is referred to in terms that clearly indicate that

the region is chaotic and unstable: ‘a troubled area of Bolivia’, ‘harbours Colombian drug

traffickers, Right-wing separatists and ethnic Indian militants’, ‘huge refineries and secret

airstrips’, and ‘the restive, largely lawless area’. This article mentions traditional uses of coca:

‘Bolivia is one of the largest growers of coca, the leaves of which are used in the cosmetics and

food industries or are chewed as a stimulant’. However, the Express then goes on to suggest

these things are secondary to the European understanding of the leaf: ‘More crucially, cocaine

can be produced from them and Beni has an entrenched underground economy linked to illegal

drugs.’

The three articles contrast the image of Beni as a disordered, volatile place with the

British-born Jordan’s beauty, as though she should be protected from such an environment. The

similarities between the articles are indicative of the deep-rooted stereotypes of Latin America

as a chaotic and backward place. The tone of all three articles is sensationalist, choosing to

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focus on the contrast between the beautiful model and the faceless bogeymen who rule Beni,

rather than the questionable appointment of a person with little experience to the position of

Directora Regional de la Agencia para el Desarrollo de las Macroregiones, and the anti-

democratic nature of her appointment, given the fact that she was personally appointed by

Morales shortly after losing the province’s gubernatorial elections. That is not to say that these

articles do not mention these things, but rather that the contrast is given more attention,

implying that Jordan’s appointment would have attracted little attention had it not provided the

hook of the pretty British woman amongst the savages of a Latin American backwater.

A report in The Times called ‘Cocaine Trail’ purports to expose Bolivia’s drug routes. As

is the case with the three Jordan interviews, the article portrays Bolivia as a chaotic and

dangerous place infested with criminals, not least with its subheading: ‘Bolivia's drug routes are

as packed with traffickers as the M25 is with sales reps’. The article’s brief reference to Morales

is the only unequivocal reference to illegal activity on his part in this corpus:

“There are no other options and as long as there is a market we will keep making the coke that gringos want,” said Evo Morales, a farmers’ union leader in Villa Tunari, who has proclaimed himself Bolivia’s coca king […] He sells half processed cocaine paste to an intermediary, known as chichipato.

(The Times 13 February 1999)

The article is written in such as style as to suggest the journalist interviewed all the

people quoted, without actually saying so. It is incredible that Morales, then a congressional

deputy since 1997, would be so open about selling cocaine, even with a foreign journalist.

However, even if one were to accept that the journalist or The Times would actively engage in

such practices, it is equally incredible that a British newspaper would deliberately attempt to

discredit a then-obscure Bolivian politician. On the other hand, the article contains several

inaccuracies which render its reliability questionable. It references the ‘Death Train’, which

travels from Santa Cruz to Puerto Quijarro on the Brazilian border. The Times claims the train is

called the ‘Death Train’ since ‘gun battles frequently take place on board between feuding

traffickers’. This is not true. There are two competing explanations for the train’s nickname,

neither of which relate to gun battles: one, that it is because of the train’s poor safety record, or

two, because of its past transport of yellow fever victims. I have been unable to find any other

reference to the nickname being due to violence on board the train. It may seem like a rather

minor point to take issue with, but the explanation provided by The Times plays on stereotypes

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of Latin America as a lawless place, and adds to the overall image the article provides. The

article also claims that men walk up and down the train openly arranging major drug deals on

their mobile phones. It seems rather unlikely that a reliable mobile phone signal could have

been found along that train route in 1999, though it is perhaps possible in the environs of the

city of Santa Cruz. The piece claims that ‘The train was waved on and entered Brazil without

another check’, indicating that customs operations are rather lax. However, the train doesn’t

enter Brazil, rather, it terminates in Puerto Quijarro, about two kilometres away from the border.

Moreover, the train journey is described as 1000 miles long & and terminating at ‘Corumbaor’,

Brazil. That should be 350 miles and, as already noted, Puerto Quijarro, Bolivia. ‘Corumbaor’

should be Corumba. Admittedly, the distance and spelling of Corumba are corrected in an

addendum attached in the Newsbank database, but it does indicate the article or its editing is

slapdash at best.

Despite its factual inaccuracies, this article contains probably the most detailed

explanation of the uses and problems of the coca leaf of this section of the corpus:

In the Andes coca is a venerated crop, and chewed to stave off hunger pangs and altitude sickness. But the Chapare coca leaf is a different species with a more bitter taste, and the only reason to grow coca here, where coca plantations now cover 130,000 hectares, is to produce cocaine. Traditional chewing coca is grown in the lush highland region of Las Yungas, 100 miles outside the capital La Paz.

(The Times 13 February 1999: Four Corners 42)

The Financial Times article (22 November 2001: 13) that discusses cocalero protests,

as referred to above, contextualizes the eradication protests within a wider economic crisis, in

which Bolivia is attempting to switch from being ‘a coca-based economy into a gas-based one’.

This suggests that – unsurprisingly for the Financial Times – the newspaper views the

coca/cocaine issue primarily in economic terms. Cultural considerations do not appear to

feature in the article’s treatment of the subject. In other words, the article operates within the

logic of coloniality, insofar as the ‘US-sponsored efforts’ and the fact that ‘[…] US-aid [is] tied to

eradication and greater emphasis [is] placed on the link between drug-trafficking and the

financing of terrorism after September 11’ are not questioned or criticized, and indeed are

couched in terms of progress and development, not domination and vested interests.

This logic resurfaces in another Financial Times article, which discusses the 2008

expulsion of the US ambassadors to Bolivia and Venezuela, and Bolivian and Venezuelan

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ambassadors to the US, after disagreements regarding eradication measures occurred. The

headline ‘US cites Bolivia for failure in fight on drugs’ (Financial Times 17 September 2008: 9)

casts Bolivia as the irresponsible, uncivilized country requiring direction from the US. The

opening line is very revealing: ‘Tension increased further yesterday between the US and the

allies of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela […]’ It would appear that the fact that the Bolivian

government is an ally of Venezuela, the US’s ideological opponent, is more important than

Bolivian government itself. In other words, the disagreement is presented as an ideologically

driven matter, rather than a disagreement over the intricacies of policy. It is the way in which the

right of the US to be the sole judge of Bolivia’s success in drug enforcement within its own

borders is taken for granted that uncovers the logic of coloniality, revealing the assumed

inevitability of US hegemony.

An Economist article is one of the very few in the corpus to reference British

involvement in anti-drugs efforts in Bolivia, albeit very vaguely:

The main tool has been eradication of coca bushes, with (until recently) hefty compensation for growers affected; plus efforts- mainly American-financed, but now also with aid from the United Nations, Britain and the Dutch- to wean the cocaleros on to alternative crops.

(Economist 20 February 1999)

The lack of attention to the UK’s role in anti-drug activity could be interpreted as an

extension of Pratt’s theme of anti-conquest rhetoric and Mignolo’s colonial difference. The latter

sees the US repeatedly cast as the dominant power with little regard for local rights or realities,

as in:

Human-rights groups say that the Americans, once again, have played the decertification card to shove the government into changing the law, or else. The government calls its coca-eradication drive the Dignity Plan. What dignity can there be, critics ask, in having one’s laws dictated by foreigners?

(Economist 20 February 1999)

Britain’s role, meanwhile, is less clear, and when mentioned is usually presented as

being more benign, with little reference to human rights concerns or local opposition. The former

is apparent in the way Britain’s contribution is characterized in terms of ‘alternative

development’, usually explained as crop replacement programmes. The potential benefit that

may accrue to British companies is never articulated. The use of the term ‘wean’ in the excerpt

quoted earlier suggests the cocaleros are children that need to mature under the direction of

wiser nations.

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An Economist article regarding cocalero protests portrays Bolivia as chaotic and violent.

This is not an attempt to underplay the frequency of protests in Bolivia, nor the seriousness of

the protests in question. However, the article implies the entire country is in turmoil, rather than

one region, with some sensationalist imagery: ‘A hardline on coca meets bloodshed’, ‘Angry

would-be coca farmers’, ‘…the decree last month set the country alight’, and ‘Police were met

by an angry mob’ (Economist 16 February 2002). Once more, the country is drawn as

uncivilized, rather than the protests being put into the context of localized disturbances.

Another Economist article (8 March 2003) discusses Plan Colombia, and the impact its

‘success’ has on coca growth elsewhere in Latin America. Plan Colombia is presented as a

pyrrhic victory for the US. The article, in contrast to that of 20 February 1999, refers to ‘Bolivia’s

powerful coca growers’ movement’. The report describes US worry at the cocaleros’ power,

quoting John Walters, the then Director of the White Office of National Drug Control Policy, as

referring to the “politicization” of coca in Peru and Bolivia as “most troubling”. While there is no

doubt that coca, in Bolivia especially, is a political issue, and Walters’ comments are clearly

flagged as US official discourse, there is no indication that the US has itself long politicized the

coca issue, having in the past framed drugs as a threat to US security by funding communism,

and in the post-September 11 era, terrorism.

In another article, the Economist covers similar ground, discussing the state of anti-

drugs measures in Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. However, the issue is presented slightly

differently. The article alludes to the US’s own politicization of coca: ‘The Americans must

decide between the drug war and democracy. Their options include withdrawing aid and vetoing

loans to South America’s poorest republic’, and later, ‘The problem is that containment carries

heavy political costs for democratic governments in the Andes. The drug trade itself undermines

democracy, but so do the heavy-handed American efforts to contain it’ (Economist 18 March

2006: 4). Again, Pratt’s anti-conquest rhetoric is on display, as the report subtly denigrates US

actions in Bolivia, whilst implying that the financial potential of coca should be exploited, and not

doing so is illogical: ‘Andean governments will continue to be faced with the thankless task of

trying to repress market forces’. Given the Economist’s explicit pro-free market stance, one can

assume that trying to repress market forces is irrational, though admittedly the exact extent to

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which private British interests would be served by legalizing coca or cocaine internationally is

unclear.

Yet another Economist article (27 June 2009: 2) discusses anti-drug measures in

Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and Bolivia, though the section on Bolivia is brief. The report notes that

drug seizures and anti-drug operations in Bolivia have increased under Morales. It then goes on

to claim that ‘the lab’s existence seemed to confirm the worries of American officials that despite

these efforts the government’s friendliness to coca growers help the drug traffickers’. Here, the

Economist essentially endorses US discourse. Furthermore, the statement seems illogical, and

there is no indication provided as to how such a conclusion can be made. That is, for the

Economist the seizures are evidence the government is encouraging trafficking, not that anti-

trafficking measures have been stepped up.

Coca/cocaine in the Bolivian press

There are a total of 232 Bolivian newspaper articles that are concerned with

coca/cocaine in this corpus. Naturally, due to the large number of articles used in this section, it

will not be possible to discuss each article in detail, unlike the British articles in this chapter,

almost all of which have been directly referred to or quoted from. However, all articles will be

used when presenting quantitative data, with a selection of articles being used to provide

supporting statements for the conclusions that are extrapolated from that data. Nevertheless, it

should be noted that the quantitative data is divided into the period prior to Morales’s election as

president, and the period after, since much of the quantitative data pre-election assumes that

the Chapare cocaleros and the government hold opposing views. Once Morales took office as

president, this underlying assumption would not hold.5

The treatment of the coca/cocaine distinction by the Bolivian press affords an

interesting comparison with the UK press; albeit a comparison that could be viewed as applying

double standards. The Bolivian press rarely articulates or explicitly refers to the distinction. The

earlier analysis of the UK press’s treatment of the coca-cocaine distinction regarded failures to

make clear the distinction as problematic. However, the same omissions on the part of the

5 It should be noted that the division occurs from 19 December 2005 onwards, since the election took place on 18

December 2005. Therefore the time periods are split as 2000-2005 and 2005-2010 in the tables that follow, rather than 2000-2005 and 2006-2010 as would normally be expected.

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Bolivian press is less problematic, since naturally cultural context means that the typical Bolivian

reader is already conscious of the distinction and does not need it explained to them in the

same way as a typical British reader may. In other words, the Bolivian press can safely assume

knowledge on the part of the reader in a way that the British press cannot.

Nevertheless, it is worth examining how the Bolivian press frames both the coca leaf

and cocaine, in order to see how Pratt’s concept of transculturation manifests itself in Bolivia

today, and to what extent, if any, the logic of coloniality means that the European interpretation

of the coca leaf occupies a privileged space within a national press that historically been written

by and for a white elite. Essentially, one purpose of this section is to reveal how the coca leaf

remains subject to contesting interpretations and is continually reshaped according to Bolivia’s

political and socio-economic climate, and whether the historical subalternity of the indigenous

means that, despite the importance of coca in Bolivian culture, the Bolivian press subtly

endorses the interpretation of the coca leaf as cocaine.

The coca/cocaine distinction

As noted above, the Bolivian press rarely articulates or explicitly refers to the distinction

between the coca leaf and cocaine. However, that is not to say that the distinction is totally

absent. The press often specifically refers to illegal coca or excess coca when discussing

eradication efforts. For example, Correo del Sur (21 January 2000: 14) refers to ‘[…] las labores

de erradicación de los cultivos de coca que pretenden acabar con la producción ilegal,

destinada a la elaboración de cocaína, en el año 2002’, while Los Tiempos informs readers that:

Pese a que la vigente Ley 1008, del Régimen de la Coca y Sustancias Controladas, estipula expresamente una zona de no más de 12 mil hectáreas de cultivos lícitos, en la zona tradicional yungueña, el Ministerio de Desarrollo Rural libró ayer la Resolución No. 093, con la cual se autoriza la comercialización de coca excedente, en tanto culmine el estudio de la demanda nacional.

(Los Tiempos 21 May 2006: A2)

We can see that it is less that the Bolivian press does not pay attention to the difference

between coca and cocaine, rather that it does not need to explain why there are limits on the

amount of coca that can be grown, nor indeed the reason why any coca is allowed to be grown

at all. No explanation of ‘traditional uses’ is required. The focus is on what the limits should be,

not whether coca should be legal or not. The legitimacy of the legal market is not in question,

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rather the extent of demand in that legal market is. The duality of the leaf is simply taken for

granted by the Bolivian press and not seen as especially remarkable, while its UK counterpart,

as discussed earlier, clearly privileges the European coca-as-cocaine interpretation.

Nevertheless, it could be argued that the Bolivian lack of discussion of the distinction serves a

white and often US-educated elite by ignoring the extent to which, in terms of policy, the coca-

as-coca interpretation is subordinate to the coca-as-cocaine interpretation. Lack of discussion of

the distinction discourages further contestation of the leaf’s primary purpose, suggesting that

domestically the process of transculturation from original use to European use continues.

Interestingly, the treatment of the coca-cocaine distinction changes slightly with the

election of Morales. After the 2005 election, references to the distinction become more frequent.

Some references are mere passing references, and clearly assume the reader is already aware

of the exact nature of the distinction, for example:

El plan de erradicación concertada de la hoja de coca se inició ayer en la localidad de Caranavi, que tiene como objetivo principal demostrar a la comunidad internacional la ejecución de la lucha contra las drogas sin utilizar la represión y respetando el uso de la hoja milenaria.

(El Diario 21 May 2006: 1)

This reference is, despite its lack of detail, interesting in that El Diario, usually regarded

as La Paz’s most conservative daily, uses the term ‘millennial leaf’, a term regularly used by

MAS and Bolivia’s social movements. More importantly, there are several more explicit

references to the coca/cocaine distinction, for example: ‘... se realizaba un estudio para

determinar si la demanda lícita de la hoja para fines alimenticios, medicinales y rituales ha

superado las 12.000 hectáreas previstas en la legislación’, (La Razón 29 January 2006: A28).

However, the increased attention paid to the coca-cocaine distinction reflects the discourse of

the new government, in the context of the MAS’s campaign to have coca removed from the

UN’s list of poisonous substances under the 1961 convention: ‘El Presidente electo aseguró

que su estrategia pasará por "cocaína cero" y no "coca cero", a tiempo de reivindicar las

propiedades curativas de ese arbusto’, (Los Tiempos 3 January 2006: 1) and ‘El Presidente

aclaró que la despenalización de la coca no implica su cultivo libre, sino la legalización de su

producción y consumo con fines alimentarios, medicinales y de rituales’, (Los Tiempos 29

January 2006: A3). It appears that the Bolivian press’s references to the distinction are largely

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government-led. The election of the MAS has furthered a new stage in the international process

of transculturation insofar as it is now explicit government policy to resist the European

interpretation of the leaf, causing international bodies like the UN to engage more deeply with

the original interpretation and so re-examine the European interpretation. It would seem that the

domestic process of transculturation from original use to European use has been, if not

completely reversed, slowed down, but that the press has little real agency in this process.

Framing of coca/cocaine

Broadly speaking, coca/cocaine is presented as a trade union issue by the Bolivian

press, albeit a trade union issue with its own particular complexities. Furthermore, the cocaleros

are portrayed as just one of a myriad of pressure groups with their own concerns and sectional

interests, and with both moderate and more extreme factions. While the UK press presents

coca/cocaine as something of a self-contained issue, though one with a significant impact on

Bolivia’s foreign relations, the coverage in the Bolivian press better demonstrates the interplay

between coca/cocaine and Bolivia’s other internal political and socio-economic concerns.

Table 3.5 demonstrates that coca-cocaine is framed as a trade union matter, with 64.14

per cent of articles prior to the December 2005 election being framed as such. 35.35 per cent of

articles frame it as a criminal or military matter, and a mere 0.51 per cent – a single article –

frame it as a cultural matter. These classifications are based upon my own interpretation of the

articles in question. Some of the articles encompass more than one of these classifications and

therefore necessitated a judgement call as to the primary framing. Articles characterized as

being framed as a political/trade union matter are those which report the various negotiations

and disagreements between the government and the cocaleros, discussions of the legal limits

on coca growth, and strikes or protests that involve the cocaleros. For example, the El Diario

article ‘Gobierno asistirá hoy a reunión con el sector de los cocaleros’ (El Diario 4 January 2003,

Cuerpo I 5), with the subheading ‘Presencia del sector del trópico cochabambino no está

confirmada. Resultados de la cita podrían permitir encuentro entre el Presidente de la

República y Evo Morales’, firmly frames the government-cocalero talks as an everyday political

matter.

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Articles designated as framing coca-cocaine as a criminal or military matter report on

the militarization of the Chapare, including new military installations in the region; criminal

activity, including the disappearances of and attacks on police, members of the armed forces,

and cocaleros; and those which through primary or secondary discourse, position the cocalero

union activity as beneficial to or linked to illicit activity. The latter of these, for example, is

demonstrated in an item titled ‘Cainco pide la extradición de Evo’ (El Mundo 14 January 2003:

14), in which the president of the Cámara de Industria, Comercio y Servicios de Santa Cruz,

Zvonko Matovic, suggests that Morales should be extradited to the US because of cocalero

protests, stating that the cocaleros are ‘ligada al narcotráfico’. While this article refers to the

same set of protests as the El Diario article referenced in the previous paragraph, its headline

clearly frames the union activity as a criminal issue, hence the categorization.

Only one article, as demonstrated by the data in the table below, frames the issue as a

cultural matter – an article almost entirely made up of secondary discourse, in which Evo

Morales implies that the government’s eradication policies are due to cultural differences

(Correo del Sur, 'Evo Morales: El Gobierno no sólo quiere coca cero sino cocaleros cero’ 12

December 2000: 13).

TABLE 3.5: FRAMING OF COCA-COCAINE IN BOLIVIAN PRESS 2000-2005

Criminal/Military

matter Cultural matter

Political/Trade union matter Total

Correo del Sur 2000 26 1 19 46

2003 0 0 4 4

Los Tiempos 2000 8 0 14 22

2003 0 0 6 6

El Diario 2000 12 0 2 14

2003 3 0 13 16

La Razón 2000 3 0 10 13

2003 0 0 5 5

2005 0 0 1 1

El Deber 2000 5 0 14 19

2003 1 0 15 16

El Mundo 2000 11 0 11 22

2003 1 0 13 14

Total 70 1 127 198

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It should be noted that the Bolivian coca articles are much more news-based than the

UK coca-related articles. That is, the Bolivian coca-related articles in this corpus are generally

traditional news reports based upon what has happened or is happening, providing ample detail

regarding specific incidents or developments. The UK articles, however, though often in the

news sections, are much more inclined to be general features on the drug trade in Bolivia – or

Latin America as a whole – essentially summaries of the overall state of anti-drug efforts in

Bolivia. It appears that the news-based approach makes the framing of articles much more

sensitive to individual events and more readily affected by the discourse of the actors

subsequently quoted, amply demonstrated by Morales’s ‘cocaleros cero’ comments reported in

the above Correo del Sur article from 12 December 2000. Of course, the journalist or editor’s

choice of actors quoted will have a bearing on the framing of coca/cocaine, but nevertheless the

link between secondary discourse and framing is quite explicit. In the UK press, meanwhile,

framing appears much more dependent on the interpretations of the journalist or the sub-editor,

whose commentary and headlines frame the matter, with secondary discourse merely providing

supporting statements. This is somewhat counter-intuitive given that, as indicated in the section

relating to the Bolivian press background, the Anglo press is theoretically upheld by ideas of

objectivity, and the Latin American press is underpinned by notions of advocacy journalism. Of

course, this is not to imply that simply by quoting other people a newspaper or journalist can be

objective and without bias, just that one would expect the Bolivian press to mix analysis and

news. On the other hand, the very fact that the UK press is reporting on international news

means a macro-level view, rather than the news-based approach of the Bolivian press, is

necessary in order to provide the reader with some context.

The framing of coca/cocaine as a trade union matter rather than a criminal or military

matter renders the contestation of limits on coca growth and the idea of coca as a licit crop a

normal or routine part of Bolivian media discourse, in contrast to UK media discourse, in which

coca as a licit crop is something of a novelty. However, the framing of coca/cocaine as a

political/trade union issue does mean that it is discussed largely in European terms, that is, in

terms constrained by European conceptions of politics, economics, and social organization.

This would suggest that, though the cocaleros may have a voice, the lack of framing as a

cultural issue means that the cocaleros engage with the debate in European terms.

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It is worth pointing out that the prevalence of the framing of coca/cocaine as a military or

criminal matter is skewed somewhat by Correo del Sur and El Diario. While the other four

papers’ articles are heavily weighted in favour of a political/trade union framing, the articles in

Correo del Sur and El Diario are more evenly spread, with 52 per cent and 50 per cent

respectively. While this is by no means a large majority in either case, the impact upon the

overall figures is significant. There is no obvious explanation from this within the data, but one

could speculate that El Diario’s generally conservative stance accounts for its figures. Correo

del Sur is based in Sucre, a city that has a relatively high white population and was the centre of

colonial power. It is also, if not quite a bastion of conservatism, not associated with the

radicalism of La Paz/El Alto or Cochabamba. Furthermore, it is far removed from the centre of

both the coca trade and the cocaine trade. Perhaps the demographic makeup and geographical

location of Sucre may partially explain Correo del Sur’s framing of the issue. However, it should

be noted that both El Deber and El Mundo are based in Santa Cruz, generally regarded as

Bolivia’s ‘whitest’ city, yet both those papers are heavily weighted in favour of political/trade

union framing, so Sucre’s demographics may have little to do with Correo del Sur’s framing of

coca/cocaine. Then again, unlike Sucre, Santa Cruz has been frequently affected by cocalero

protests on the La Paz-Cochabamba-Santa Cruz road, so the Santa Cruz papers may regard

the cocaleros as being central to the area’s stability and therefore economic growth, and

consequently frame coca/cocaine as a trade union issue.

On the other hand, the high frequency of political/trade union framing across the entire

data set may be a result of selection bias. Since one of the criteria for the selection of articles

for this corpus was that Evo Morales had to be mentioned in the headline and Morales is the

leader of a cocalero trade union, it means that many of the articles collected would be likely to

be reports on union-related matters. Another problematic aspect of Morales being part of the

selection criteria is that the corpus overwhelmingly relates to coca in the Chapare, and there is

a paucity of references to the Yungas cocaleros. A corpus that included more coverage of the

Yungas may have provided an interesting counterpoint to the treatment of the Chapare coca

given the notion of coca as an empty signifier for the Chapare cocaleros, as per Thomas

Grisaffi’s work, referred to earlier in this chapter.

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Similarly, the coca articles published after the December 2005 elections are also framed

as a political/trade union matter, as per Table 3.6. 75.76 per cent of post-election articles are in

that category, while criminal/military framing accounts for 21.21 per cent, and cultural framing

for just 3.03 per cent, suggesting that the election of the MAS, a cocalero-led government, has

had little impact upon the Bolivian press’s framing of coca.

TABLE 3.6: FRAMING OF COCA-COCAINE IN BOLIVIAN PRESS 2005-2010

Criminal/Military

matter Cultural matter

Political/Trade union matter Total


2006 0 0 2 2

2008 0 0 1 1

2009 0 0 2 2

2010 1 0 0 1

Los Tiempos 2005 0 0 1 1

2006 0 0 3 3

2009 1 0 1 2

El Diario 2006 2 0 1 3

2008 1 0 0 1

La Razón 2005 0 0 1 1

2006 1 1 8 10

2009 1 0 1 2

El Deber 2005 0 0 1 1

2006 0 0 1 1

2008 0 0 1 1

Total 7 1 25 33

In terms of individual newspapers, the difference between the 2000-2005 framing and

the 2005-2010 framing, is that Correo del Sur switches from having a slight majority of articles

that frame coca-cocaine as a political/trade union matter to an overwhelming majority. Only El

Diario, at seventy-five per cent, has a majority that frame it as a criminal/military issue.

Moreover, this constitutes a large increase from fifty per cent during the period 2000-2005 –

though it should be noted that the far smaller sample size of 2005-2010 means a single article

can make a significant difference to the overall figures.


Of course, the framing of each article is a very blunt tool for analysis, so the rest of this

section takes a closer look at the content and discourse of the articles. Table 3.7a shows that

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there are a total of 1393 instances of discourse representation in the 198 coca-cocaine articles

published between January 2000 and the December 2005 election.

TABLE 3.7A: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BOLIVIAN COCA-COCAINE RELATED ARTICLES 2000-2005

6

All papers Total

DD DD(S) ID UNSIG


Cocaleros 193 130 398 7 728

Evo Morales 164 108 309 2 583




Total 341 223 812 17 1393

As indicated by Table 3.7a, between 2000 and 2005 the representation of cocalero

discourse is more common than that of official discourse, with 728 instances of the former

versus 573 of the latter. By examining these figures only, one could conclude that the cocaleros

are viewed as a legitimate political group by the Bolivian press, and that the cocaleros are

considered a slightly more authoritative source than the government in relation to coca.

However, this initial inference is tempered by a closer look at boundary maintenance in relation

to both sources, which indicates that the government is afforded a greater degree of legitimacy.

There are very few instances of UNSIG in relation to either source – though it should be noted

that UNSIG is the only category in which there are a greater number of instances of official

discourse representation than cocalero discourse representation. UNSIG accounts for 1.75 per

cent of official discourse representation and 0.96 per cent of cocalero discourse representation.

More significantly, ID accounts for a greater proportion of official discourse representation,

accounting for 62.13 per cent of official discourse representation, in contrast to 54.67 per cent of

cocalero discourse representation.

While the disparity is by no means a very large one, the figures do indicate that while

the Bolivian press regularly uses the cocaleros as sources of information, the manner in which

the cocaleros are quoted means their discourse is less readily incorporated into primary

discourse than official discourse, subtly ascribing more legitimacy to official discourse.

6 The discourse of Evo Morales is subset of cocalero figures, and has not been added to the total.

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Nevertheless, across both source types boundary maintenance is rather low. Los Tiempos is

the only newspaper in which ID accounts for less than half of official discourse representation,

at 46.55 per cent. Meanwhile, ID accounts for less than half of cocalero discourse

representation in Los Tiempos and Correo del Sur at 42.59 per cent and 49.23 per cent

respectively. La Razón exhibits the lowest boundary maintenance of all six newspapers, with ID

accounting for 75 per cent of its official discourse representation, and 78.95 per cent of its

cocalero discourse representation. The same newspaper has the lowest proportion of DD, at

12.5 per cent and 26.3 per cent for official discourse representation and cocalero discourse

representation respectively, though it should be noted that El Mundo’s proportion of DD in

relation to official sources is marginally lower than La Razón’s at 11.11 per cent.

It would appear that, while overall boundary maintenance is lower in relation to official

discourse, at the level of most individual newspapers the difference is not so marked. Having

compared the proportion of ID in relation to both source types for each individual newspaper,

the difference is less than five percentage points for four of the six papers – and three of those

have marginally higher rates of ID in relation to cocalero discourse. It would appear that for

those four newspapers low boundary maintenance is characteristic of their reporting style,

rather than any ideological stance. It is Correo del Sur and El Deber that exhibit markedly higher

boundary maintenance in relation to cocalero discourse. The difference in the rates of ID in

relation to both source types in each paper is 14.4 percentage points and 15.46 percentage

points respectively in favour of official discourse. Consequently, the figures for Correo del Sur

and El Deber have had a significant impact upon the overall figures.

It is perhaps by examining third-party discourse that the difference between the UK

press’s treatment of coca/cocaine and the Bolivian press’s treatment of it becomes clear. Table

3.7a demonstrates that instances of third-party discourse make up a tiny proportion of the

Bolivian press’s discourse representation in relation to coca/cocaine, with just 92 instances of

third-party discourse out of a total of 1393 instances of all discourse, that is, just 6.6 per cent. Of

the three categories of third parties, United States officials is the smallest, with just ten

instances of discourse representation over the five-year period. Effectively, statements and

debates about coca/cocaine in Bolivia are presented by the national press as just that –

statements and debates in Bolivia. In contrast, the UK press frequently quotes US officials and

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cites US government statistics in coca-cocaine related articles. This suggests that while the US

occupies a privileged space in the UK press’s consciousness, for the Bolivian press

coca/cocaine is a Bolivian issue. The UK press, though writing about Bolivia, essentially

disappears the country: Bolivia is merely a blank canvas onto which European and US concerns

may be projected, just as Foster’s thesis demonstrated Costaguana was for Conrad, and

Mexico was for D.H. Lawrence. The British press coverage of coca/cocaine is emblematic of the

tendency to relate everything Latin American back to the US, and continually present the US

and Latin America as distinctly antithetical entities. However, the small number of Bolivian third-

party discourse representation in the Bolivian press suggests that the actors deemed eligible to

take part in the debate surrounding coca/cocaine are restricted to a small group. It would

appear that, via the Bolivian press, it is the cocaleros, who are after all an interest group, and

the government that set the terms of domestic debate. Table 3.8a provides the data for the

period 2005-2010:

TABLE 3.8A: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BOLIVIAN COCA-COCAINE RELATED ARTICLES 2005-2010

7

All papers Total

DD DD(S) ID UNSIG


Evo Morales 49 48 121 1 219





Total 86 82 215 1 384

The most striking thing about the above table is that the number of instances of official

discourse representation, 309, remains reasonably high, especially when one takes into

account that there are far fewer coca articles in this time period than in the previous time period,

while the number of instances of cocalero discourse representation is far smaller at just twenty

four. This suggests that, since official discourse is now favourable toward the cocalero position

and Morales continues to act as trade union leader, official discourse is now a proxy for

cocalero discourse. It could be said that the cocaleros are, though now at the centre of power,

7 The discourse of Evo Morales is subset of state/government figures, and has not been added to the total.

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less independent, as their main spokesperson must now temper his public statements with

consideration for other state objectives. Furthermore, since the majority of discourse

representation with respect to coca/cocaine is official discourse representation, it allows for less

dissent and less public debate on the subject – though it should be pointed out that several of

the instances of cocalero discourse representation are statements made by Yungas cocaleros,

who are critical of Morales’s decision to enforce the one cato’ limit established by Mesa:

“Como zona tradicional de los Yungas no estamos de acuerdo porque nuestra producción no es como en el trópico de Cochabamba. Es poca la producción. (La legalización del cato) sería perjudicial porque no sobreviviríamos con un cato de coca”, manifestó Nicolás Chincha, uno de los dirigentes de Adepcoca.

(La Razón 28 December 2009: A16)

The most instructive way to compare discourse representation between 2005 and 2010

directly with that of 2000 to 2005 is to examine boundary maintenance, in order to see if the

Bolivian press has higher or lower boundary maintenance with respect to official discourse now

that official discourse is equivalent to cocalero discourse. Should boundary maintenance be

higher than previous years, it would reflect some resistance on the part of the press to the

change in official discourse and suggest that the press’s role in the continued contestation of

the meaning of the leaf is static. Conversely, should boundary maintenance be lower, it would

indicate little resistance to MAS’s position on coca. Indeed, as Table 3.8a shows, boundary

maintenance is quite low for both sets of discourse. While there is only one instance of UNSIG

across both source types, ID accounts for 55.66 per cent of official discourse representation,

and 58.33 per cent of cocalero discourse. The weighting in favour of ID is consistent across all

newspapers, except in the case of El Deber with respect to cocalero discourse. As discussed

earlier, ID accounts for 62.13 per cent of official discourse representation in articles from 2000

to 2005. Clearly, boundary maintenance became slightly higher with respect to official discourse

after Morales and the MAS were elected. By decreasing the level of incorporation of the MAS’s

discourse, the Bolivian press ascribes slightly less legitimacy to the idea that coca is primarily

coca, and not cocaine. One could view this as an indication of the press’s resistance to the

indigenous worldview, though since boundary maintenance with respect to official discourse is

only slightly higher than during the previous period it is difficult to come to a decisive conclusion.

In fact, one could view the data as representative of a reduction in the scope of public discourse

on coca/cocaine. It would appear that the Bolivian press relies heavily on routine sources of

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information, such as official statements, press conferences, and photo-opportunities, for its

general news content. Though this situation has not necessarily been brought about by a

change of government, the new compatibility of official discourse and cocalero discourse means

that public debate about the nature of coca is restricted. Furthermore, the large number of

quotes of all types from Morales highlights the fact that public pronouncements on coca are

restricted to very specific actors, and restricts the terms of debate even amongst cocaleros,

notwithstanding the small number of statements made by the Yungas cocaleros. Of course, this

latter point should be treated with caution given earlier comments with respect to Morales’s

discourse and selection bias.

An examination of third-party discourse will provide more evidence as to whether public

discourse on coca became more predisposed to the original interpretation of the leaf after the

election of the MAS. Returning to Table 3.8a, we can see immediately that there are far fewer

instances of third-party discourse representation than official discourse representation. However,

little of that third-party is discourse is pro-coca, in contrast to the previous time period, in which

pro-coca sources made up the majority of third-party discourse. This indicates that the pro-coca

public discourse is increasingly dominated by the MAS’s, and specifically Morales’s, position.

Conversely, US official discourse now makes up the greater proportion of third-party discourse,

and 9.64 per cent of all discourse. Moreover, a slight majority of US official discourse, 56.76 per

cent, is ID, thereby ascribing a reasonable amount of legitimacy to US discourse. Nevertheless,

at just 37 instances, US official discourse representation still makes up a tiny amount of all

discourse representation with respect to coca, and therefore the Bolivian conversation about

coca remains very much a Bolivian conversation.

Violence and illegality

In this section it has been established that the frequent quoting and citing of cocalero

discourse means that, pre-2005, the cocaleros had a powerful and apparently legitimate voice,

even if some newspapers more readily absorbed and incorporated official discourse. Post-2005,

official and state discourse have merged resulting in a narrowing of public discourse related to

coca/cocaine so that (Chapare) cocalero discourse is dominant. Nevertheless, it is worth

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examining the content from a different perspective to see to what extent, if any, the cocaleros’

position is undermined.

Table 3.9 examines references to violence in the 198 coca-cocaine related articles in

this corpus from January 2000 to December 2005. ‘Cocalero violence’ indicates reference made

to violence on the part of the cocaleros, whether simply alleged or confirmed, and whether the

violence is official union activity or committed by individuals acting independently from the union.

Similarly, ‘state violence’ refers to violence on the part of a state actor or institution, alleged or

confirmed. Each set of references is further divided into ‘primary’ and secondary’. ‘Primary’

refers to all references to violence, while ‘secondary’ refers to references made within

secondary discourse only – that is, references to violence in reported discourse, not reporting

discourse. The data for secondary references is therefore a subset of primary references, and

not added to the total figures.

TABLE 3.9: REFERENCES TO VIOLENCE IN COCA-COCAINE RELATED ARTICLES 2000-2005

Cocalero violence State violence

Primary Secondary Primary Secondary Total

Correo del Sur 2000 80 55 31 24 111

2003 43 27 9 7 52

Los Tiempos 2000 63 50 11 10 74

2003 9 9 6 3 15

El Diario 2000 20 17 14 12 34

2003 60 45 22 20 82

La Razón 2000 0 0 3 3 3

2003 0 0 2 1 2

2005 15 15 35 32 50

El Deber 2000 3 0 3 2 6

2003 9 3 15 10 24

El Mundo 2000 2 2 17 10 19

2003 0 0 0 0 0

Total 304 223 168 134 472

It is clear that there are more references to violence on the part of the cocaleros.

References to cocalero violence constitute 64.14 per cent of references to violence. Most of the

references to violence on either side are contained within secondary discourse. More often than

not, such references are the cocaleros and the state accusing each other of violence. The

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proportion of references contained within secondary discourse is quite similar on both sides

across all six newspapers: 73.76 per cent of references to cocalero violence are contained

within secondary discourse; and the figure is 79.76 per cent for state violence. It appears that

the Bolivian press is generally reluctant to make its own references to violence unless it has

been committed publicly and unambiguously. Nevertheless, the more frequent references to

cocalero violence do have the effect of undermining the cocaleros’ position and delegitimizes

their place as political/social actors. However, there is no way of determining if the references to

violence are unfounded simply by examining the articles in the corpus, which in turn makes it

difficult to determine whether the data reflect reality, or tendentious behaviour on the part of the

Bolivian press; that is, if the Bolivian press reports all violence on the part of the cocaleros,

while state violence goes unreported.

Table 3.10 below demonstrates to what extent the cocalero position on coca is

undermined by the publication of accusations or implications they have links to the cocaine

trade, that they indirectly help the cocaine trade, or that the cocaleros and drug traffickers are

the same thing. Hence the ‘accusations’ column includes instances such as the following

headline: ‘Guiteras acusa a Evo Morales y los narcos’ (La Razón 21 January 2000, A1) – which

implies that Morales and the traffickers work together – in addition to outright accusations such

as ‘Sin pruebas, llaman “narco” e “ignorante” a Evo Morales’ (Los Tiempos 17 November 2000,

A2). As is the case with Table 3.9 on violence, secondary accusations are those contained

within reported discourse, and as a subset of primary accusations are not added to the total

column.

TABLE 3.10: DENIALS AND ACCUSATIONS RELATING TO COCALERO INVOLVEMENT WITH COCAINE TRADE

2000-2005

Cocalero Denials Primary accusations Secondary accusations Total


2003 0 0 0 0


2003 0 0 0 0

El Diario 2000 2 8 8 10

2003 1 5 5 6

La Razón 2000 1 4 2 5

2003 2 0 0 2

2005 0 0 0 0

El Deber 2000 8 3 3 11

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Cocalero Denials Primary accusations Secondary accusations Total

2003 0 1 1 1

El Mundo 2000 5 13 12 18

2003 0 1 1 1

Total 29 47 42 76

As we can see from the data, the Bolivian press is more likely to publish accusations

that the cocaleros are involved in the cocaine trade than to publish denials of the same by the

cocaleros themselves. However, a significant majority of the accusations, 89.36 per cent, are

contained within secondary discourse. As is the case with violence, the Bolivian press appears

understandably wary of publishing primary suggestions of criminal activity without solid

evidence of such activity, though it appears reasonably happy to publish secondary accusations.

Although prior to 2005 cocaleros had a powerful voice within public discussion of issues

surrounding coca/cocaine, the repeated publication of accusations of violence and illegal activity

served, to a degree, to undermine their legitimacy.

However, it would be unwise to over-emphasize the extent to which the cocaleros are

accused of illegal activity. 47 accusations in 198 articles is a relatively small figure figure,

meaning that on average a little under a quarter of articles, 23.74 per cent, publish such

accusations. Moreover, it is worth repeating that Morales and other representatives of the

cocaleros are quoted frequently and given significant space in which to make their position

known; and that the coca issue is frequently presented as a trade union matter, with the

associated negotiations between parties, disagreements, stalemates and heated public

statements. Often, each side of the debate is portrayed as being as instransigent as the other:

‘En el cuarto día del conflicto y con cinco muertos, fracasa el intento de diálogo. Los cocaleros

se resisten a levantar los bloqueos. El Presidente los convocó con esa condición. A cambio

ofreció repliegue militar’ (La Razón 17 January 2003).

Of course, the relationship between the government and the cocaleros has been less

antagonistic since the main representative of the cocaleros has been head of state, so as

demonstrated by Tables 3.11 and 3.12, references to violence and cocalero involvement in the

cocaine trade have decreased dramatically since 2005:

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TABLE 3.11: REFERENCES TO VIOLENCE IN COCA-COCAINE RELATED ARTICLES 2005-2010

Cocalero violence State violence

Primary Secondary Primary Secondary Total

Correo del Sur 2005 0 0 0 0 0

2006 0 0 0 1 1

2008 0 0 0 0 0

2009 0 0 0 0 0

2010 0 0 0 0 0

Los Tiempos 2005 0 0 0 0 0

2006 0 0 0 0 0

2009 0 0 0 1 1

El Diario 2006 0 0 0 3 3

2008 0 0 0 0 0

La Razón 2005 0 0 0 0 0

2006 2 0 3 0 5

2009 0 0 0 0 0

El Deber 2005 0 0 0 0 0

2006 0 0 0 0 0

2008 0 0 0 0 0

Total 2 0 3 5 10

With just ten references to violence on the part of either party, the situation is rendered

far more peaceful than in previous years. Moreover, all ten references refer to violence that took

place under the previous government. However, this is probably very little to do with selective

reporting on the part of the press and very much to do with reality. Since Morales’s election as

president, the cocaleros have constituted his political base and the cooperative approach to

eradication has meant that violent confrontation between the cocaleros and the police or armed

forces has fallen sharply. Similarly, references to cocalero involvement in the cocaine trade are

virtually nil:

TABLE 3.12: DENIALS AND ACCUSATIONS RELATING TO COCALERO INVOLVEMENT WITH COCAINE TRADE

2005-2010

Cocalero Denials

Primary accusations

Secondary accusations Total


2006 0 0 0 0

2008 0 0 0 0

2009 0 0 0 0

2010 0 0 0 0


2006 0 0 0 0

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Cocalero Denials

Primary accusations

Secondary accusations Total

2009 0 0 0 0

El Diario 2006 0 0 0 0

2008 0 0 0 0

La Razón 2005 0 0 0 0

2006 0 0 0 0

2009 0 0 2 2

El Deber 2005 0 0 0 0

2006 0 0 0 0

2008 0 1 0 1

Total 0 1 2 3

There are no cocalero denials, and just three accusations. While the accusations figure

is larger, just three instances are hardly enough to be significant, and effectively there is very

little reference to illegal activity on the part of the cocaleros. Admittedly, these figures are hardly

surprising in light of the fact that third-party discourse makes up a smaller proportion of all

discourse representation post-2005, and the MAS are scarcely going to conflate the cocaleros

with those involved in the drug trade – despite the fact that some of Bolivia’s coca must be

grown for the cocaine trade, or otherwise there would be no such trade. Though the decrease in

references to violence has a basis in reality, the fall in references to illegal activity could be

construed as symptomatic of the narrowing of discourse representation in relation to

coca/cocaine.

It was observed earlier in this section that the extent of demand in the legal market for

coca is in question, rather than legitimacy of the legal market itself. Of course, since the level of

demand is in question, then the truthfulness of the cocaleros is also in question – particularly

the Chapare cocaleros. It would appear that, as in the case of Los Tiempos (21 May 2006: A2)

reference to ‘la zona tradicional yungueña’ quoted earlier, the legitimacy of coca growth in the

Yungas is more readily accepted than growth in the Chapare. Though eradication efforts have

taken place in the Yungas, often in the face of fierce resistance (Spedding 2005), the majority of

articles in this corpus focus on eradication attempts that take place in the Chapare rather than

the Yungas – though, as explained earlier, the fact that the selection criteria included references

to Morales may have created a selection bias. Nevertheless, the insistence of the members of

the Chapare cocalero union that they grow coca for traditional use is often called into doubt,

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either through the newspapers’ own discourse, or the reported discourse of third parties. In one

particularly obvious example of the former, an opinion piece in Correo del Sur explicitly states

that Morales is involved in criminal activity:

Las amenazas subversivas de diputado Evo Morales deberían merecer su desafuero […] En efecto, antes de que unos cuantos cocaleros, al mando del “comandante” Evo Morales, alentados y financiados por narcotraficantes de cualquier nacionalidad, pretenden movilizar unos “comités de autodefensa”[…].

(Correo del Sur 22 January 2000: 2)

A reported statement made by the then-Minister of Government, Guillermo Fortún, an

example of ID, links Morales and the cocaleros to the illegal drugs trade more subtly:

La erradicación de cultivos ilegales de coca en la región de del Chapare continuará a pesar del hostigamiento contra los efectivos de la Fuerza de Tarea Conjunta por Evo Morales y por narcotraficantes, afirmó aquí el ministro de Gobierno Guillermo Fortún.

(Correo del Sur 19 May 2000: 13)

That quotation not only opens a news report, but is not contained within quotation

marks, and it is not immediately obvious to the reader that the statement is reported discourse.

Furthermore, the cocaleros’ own denials of illegal activity may draw attention to the fact that

their legitimacy is in doubt: ‘Morales añadió que si esta acción [el asesinato de un soldado por

francotiradoes] ha sido consecuencia de una reacción campesina, ésta no tendría ninguna

vinculación con las redes de narcotraficantes’ (Correo del Sur 21 January 2000: 14).

Conclusion

This chapter has provided an analysis of the coverage of the coca leaf in the British and

Bolivian press. The analysis has revealed a disparity between the treatment of the coca/cocaine

distinction insofar as the distinction is not made especially clear by the British press. The British

press tends to undermine the distinction between the two and effectively reproduces the logic of

coloniality by privileging the European understanding of the leaf and resisting the Andean

interpretation. Though the MAS government has successfully lobbied for Bolivia to be exempt

from the UN prohibition of the coca leaf and Bolivia’s indigenous groups have a stronger voice

on the world stage, there appears to have been little significant effect on the British press’s view

of coca. A key objective of this chapter was to determine if the recent political changes in Bolivia

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would usher in a new phase of transculturation: though the British press does engage with the

Andean interpretation of the leaf insofar as it refers to the distinction, its resistance to the

Andean worldview suggests that any new phase of transculturation is limited. Meanwhile, it

would appear that the logic of coloniality operates to a much more limited extent in the Bolivian

press’s coverage of coca-cocaine than in the British coverage. The European interpretation of

coca does not appear to take precedence over the Andean interpretation within the Bolivian

press coverage. This is not to claim that the Bolivian press does not engage with the idea of

coca-as-cocaine, as it clearly does so, given its repeated references to ‘illegal coca’. However,

there is no suggestion that the Bolivian press regards coca-as-cocaine a more legitimate

interpretation than coca-as-coca. On the contrary, the Bolivian press clearly demarcates

between the two, and the duality of the leaf is evident. This would suggest that, despite the fact

that the Bolivian print media has historically comprised of a white elite catering to a white elite,

Bolivian media discourse is much more likely to contest the logic of coloniality than the British

press.

As was seen in the previous chapter, the British press also tends to discuss

coca/cocaine in terms of a Bolivia versus US (or Latin America versus US) narrative, thereby

allowing US concerns to set the terms of debate. Though the British press is often implicitly or

explicitly critical of US involvement in Latin America in the guise of the War on Drugs, it

nevertheless allows the US perspective to overwhelm its coverage of the issue, and Bolivia

itself is often incidental to the coverage. The focus on the US is accompanied by an obscuring

of the UK’s role in the War on Drugs, and the lack of attention to the UK’s role may be read as a

reproduction of Pratt’s anti-conquest rhetoric and Mignolo’s notion of the colonial difference.

This in itself means that British concerns also influence coverage of coca, as Britain finds itself

reassessing its own position on the world stage in the twenty-first century. As was pointed out in

the previous chapter, the focus upon the US’s role in Bolivia’s coca eradication programme both

obscures the extent of the UK’s contemporary soft power, and uncovers resentment at the

country’s perceived role as a lapdog to its former colony. The next chapter will provide an

interesting point of comparison to this aspect of the British coverage of coca, since there has

been a significant amount of British investment in Bolivia’s energy sector. In contrast, the

coverage of coca in the Bolivian press presents coca/cocaine as a routine political matter, yet in

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a way that means it is discussed largely in terms of European conceptions of politics,

economics, and social organization. Yet it remains a domestic matter: levels of discourse

representation demonstrate that external voices are largely excluded from the debate in

Bolivia’s media, regardless of any influence at policy level. However, this is also indicative of a

very restricted sphere of authority in that the conversation is largely restricted to the cocaleros

and the government, and once Morales takes office and the two discourses essentially merge,

public discourse narrows further.

The British coverage at times depicts Bolivia as a wild, chaotic place, drawing upon old

stereotypes of an uncivilized world as established by historical representations. The UK press

portrays Bolivia as being fundamentally lawless. In contrast, the Bolivian coverage, while

making frequent reference to violence on the part of the state and cocaleros during the first half

of the decade, shows that the rule of law does exist, that the violence is restricted to very

specific contexts, and is not considered a substitute for nuanced political debate.

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Chapter Four

Energy

It is commonly believed that Bolivia has historically been a mono-productive, extractive

economy, with three natural resources that have dominated at particular points in time: first

silver, then tin, and latterly hydrocarbons. This narrative has gained traction amongst both

Bolivians, such as the economists Juan Antonio Morales and Justo Espejo (1994: 6): ‘La

historia económica de Bolivia está estrechamente asociada con el desarrollo de sus recursos

naturales, especialmente mineros, y más recientemente de hidrocarburos’ (Morales and Espejo

1994: 6); and foreign commentators such as the US historian Herbert S. Klein: ‘If the previous

two centuries in Bolivia could be known as those of silver and tin, the current century could

easily be labelled the century of natural gas’ (Klein 2011: 249). While it is true that the three

resources have each dominated exports over certain time periods, in terms of the overall

economy the reality is less straightforward, as will be discussed below. Nonetheless, the nature

and history of Bolivia’s extractive industries are crucial to understanding contemporary coverage

of Bolivia’s energy sources in both the Bolivian and UK press. Consequently, the notion of a

mono-productive, extractive export sector will form the backbone of this chapter, which aims to

trace broad economic trends and the place of British capital in the Bolivian economy before

analysing the contemporary press coverage of Bolivian hydrocarbons.

Bolivia’s extractive industries: From silver, to tin, to hydrocarbons

Potosí: A colonial boomtown

The silver mines of Potosí were mentioned in chapters one, two, and three. Potosí, in

Bolivia’s southern altiplano, was one of the most important parts of the Spanish empire

(Peñaranda Subieta 1996: 2). In 1543, argentiferous deposits were found in a mountain now

known as Cerro Rico by an indigenous man named Diego Huallpa (Smale 2010: 9), leading to

the birth of a city that in many ways epitomizes Bolivia’s extractive economy. The population

exploded and Potosí became a city of superlatives: the highest, most populous, and wealthiest

city in the world. Today, the population has stalled at around 170,000,1 and much of the wealth

1 In 2001, the population of the city of Potosí was 145,057, and that of Potosí province was 709,013. Projections made

in 2001 for the year 2011 were 168,831 for the city and 793,870 for the province (Instituto Nacional Estadística 2001).

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has left. It is a classic example of a former boomtown going through a long and seemingly

inexorable decline.

The mines of Cerro Rico are imprinted on Bolivian culture. It is said that the miners

‘extracted enough ore from this mountain to build a sterling-silver bridge from Potosi to Madrid’

(Agreda 2000: 3); and the deaths of eight million forced indigenous labourers and African slaves

over three centuries (Galeano 1997: 39) are central to the myth of El Tío, the underground spirit

that is said to have dominion over the miners’ safety. Potosí was not and is not, of course,

Bolivia’s only mining centre, yet it remained the most important mining centre throughout the

colonial period, and its dominance only really came to a close at the beginning of the twentieth

century, when tin became more important than silver. Nevertheless, the Cerro Rico mines

remain open, though the silver is all but exhausted. Today the mountain is mined primarily for

zinc, a commodity that during the last decade has fetched high prices on the global market.

Since the mines are now run as cooperatives, the price of zinc means that some of the Potosí

cooperative’s socios (partners) are relatively high earners, (Michard 2008: 48). However, their

earnings are precarious in that they are extremely vulnerable to any fall in international demand

for, and consequently the price of, zinc. Meanwhile, the mines are as notorious for their poor

working conditions as they were during the colonial era. On a visit to the mines in September

2007, I saw that there is no piped-in oxygen supply, no lighting other than that from the miners’

headlamps, and little in the way of mechanization. Early deaths from illnesses such as silicosis

are common, and accidents are frequent. Despite the danger, it remains one of the area’s most

lucrative jobs, and around 10,000 people work in the mine, with many more inhabitants of

Potosí less directly dependent on it.

As noted earlier, the Potosí mines were the most important mines in the Spanish

colonies. Due to its geographical location, food supplies had to be brought in from elsewhere,

and the city drew both miners and merchants. From 1545 to 1640, Potosí was the busiest and

wealthiest trading centre in the Americas, supporting the Viceroyalty of Peru and contributing a

significant amount to metropolitan revenue (Cobb 1949: 45). The first wave of exploitation was

dominated by local extraction and local smelting techniques, such as the guayra, or wind oven.

Bolivia held its latest census in 2012. Preliminary results were released in July 2013, which indicated that the population of Potosí province is 823,517 – over 3.73 per cent higher than the projection of 793,870. Results for Potosí city have not yet been published. Adding the same percentage to the projected figure for the city gives a figure of 175,136, making 170,000 a conservative estimate.

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Early Spanish smelting efforts failed due to the altitude (Cole 1985: 3-4). This dominance of

local techniques afforded the indigenous workers a significant amount of autonomy during the

early years of silver mining at Potosí. The Andean miners extracted and refined the ore with

little interference from the Spanish, and they could keep any silver over the sixteen ounces per

week they had to give to the Spanish mine owners. A distinct class of indigenous contractors

began to emerge, who would rent mining concessions from European owners and employ other

indigenous men as labourers (Smale 2010: 9-11).

However, the balance of power shifted once high-grade ore close to the surface began

to run out as early as the 1560s, and from 1565 production levels began to decline. Not only

were deeper and more costly extraction methods required, but the local metallurgical

techniques that had proved so effective before could not be used to refine the lower grade ore

(Smale 2010: 11). This power shift played a crucial part in the introduction of the mita, or forced

labour system. The Spanish developed new amalgamation techniques suitable for high altitude

and low-grade ore (Cole 1985: 1-4). The building of the amalgamation plants and surrounding

infrastructure required an outlay of both capital and labour (Smale 2010: 10) and, in an effort to

recoup the capital outlay as quickly as possible, the colonial authorities under Viceroy Francisco

de Toledo officially sanctioned a mita system for the first time in 1573, ensuring that the Potosí

mines became profitable for their owners once more (Smale 2010: 11).

As Europeans were the only ones who could afford to build the plants demanded by the

more sophisticated refining processes (Tandeter 1981: 130), and since they had forced labour

at their disposal, both profit and technical expertise became increasingly concentrated in the

hands of the Spanish, contributing to the structure of epistemic and economic privilege that

endures to this day. The story of Guayna Capac allowed for the idea that European control of

Potosí was inevitable: Capac, an Incan emperor, spotted Cerro Rico from afar and ordered his

men to examine the area. His men were told by a voice inside the mountain that its contents

were ‘for other masters’. It should be noted, however, that silver was not a means of exchange

in pre-conquest local culture, and it is unclear to what extent Capac would have exploited the

silver anyway (Mangan 2005: 24).

Essentially, a mono-productive, extractive export sector was created, and, for the

Spanish, South America became closely associated with silver. The meaning of the region in

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colonial terms is encapsulated by naming patterns. In 1538, Pedro de Anzures, a lieutenant of

Pizarro’s, founded a colonial settlement upon the indigenous hamlet of Charcas. Reflecting the

Spanish desire for precious metals, he named it La Plata – though it is now known as Sucre,

Bolivia’s judicial capital (Gade 1970: 44). The Río de la Plata was given its name in 1526 by the

Italian explorer Sebastian Cabot after he was told about apparently huge quantities of silver and

gold at its headwaters by the local Guaraní people – though such deposits were never found

(Washburn 1871: 8). In Spain, there still exists a colloquial expression, ‘Vale un Potosí’,

meaning ‘It’s priceless’, and popularly attributed to Miguel de Cervantes. Cerro Rico itself is, of

course, another such example of the Spanish desire for wealth being reflected in naming

patterns. For The Spanish, much like the British after them, Latin America came to represent

little more than a source of raw materials to be exploited for the benefit of the metropolis.

British investment and the War of the Pacific

Upon independence a tiny oligarchy emerged from the land-owning class as figures

such as José Avelino Aramayo, Aniceto Arce, and Gregorio Pacheco acted as representatives

and managers of foreign capital investment (De Mesa, Gisbert and Mesa Gisbert 2007: 388).

Bolivia’s mono-productive, extractive export sector remained, though the dominant resource

changed from silver to tin, and later hydrocarbons. As Freddy Amusquivar Ulloa suggests,

power may have changed hands, but the system itself changed very little:

Los problemas económicos de la colonia, como la falta de la industria manufacturera que pusiera un límite al exceso de importaciones, la monoproducción minera con destino a la exportación y todo el sistema feudal español, también se volvieron “bolivianos”.

(Amusquivar Ulloa 1992: 133)

British capital was amongst the foreign investment that flowed into Bolivia’s mining

sector, and moreover into the construction of Bolivia’s railway system, which was required not to

transport people and link the country’s cities and market towns, but to support the export of raw

materials. British investors sought both to enable and control at least part of Bolivia’s extractive

economy. The extent to which the country’s infrastructure was designed for the benefit of the

extractive export sector is made clear when one considers that La Paz, Cochabamba, and

Santa Cruz were not linked by road until 1953 (Crabtree, Duffy and Pearce 1987: 58).

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In addition to the mines and railways, British merchants had significant interests along

what was then Bolivia’s Pacific coastline, and so were well positioned to profit from another

lucrative trade: nitrates. The coastal region, now part of Chile, had abundant guano (bird

excrement) and salitre (a form of saltpetre) both of which are rich in nitrates and could be used

in fertilizers and explosives. While the nitrate trade was never as critical to the Bolivian economy

as mining, it nevertheless forms an important part of the ways in which British economic

interests have enabled and profited from the extraction of raw material from Latin America, raw

material which was then refined and/or made into manufactured goods in Britain for export to

mainland Europe or indeed back to Latin America. Michael Monteón (1975: 121) points out that,

while the management of the railways, mining concessions, nitrates companies, and merchant

suppliers was dominated by British personnel, the British in nineteenth-century Bolivia were not

innovators, and mostly played established bureaucratic roles in the ports and mining towns.

The British-Chilean owned Nitrates and Railroad Company of Antofagasta was central

to the outbreak of the War of the Pacific in 1879, which saw Bolivia and Peru allied against

Chile. By the end of the war, the company controlled all the nitrate fields on what had been the

Bolivian coast, as well as the Caracoles silver mine. When the company built its railway to the

mine in 1872, the territory had been Bolivian, and the building of the railway had been heavily

subsidised by the Bolivian state. Corrupt government loan agreements and subsidies under

both military and civilian governments had led to the emergence of a hugely powerful mine-

owning elite and enabled the expansion of silver mining (Klein 2011: 138-140).

At the outbreak of the war, Bolivia was under military rule and the treasury was virtually

bankrupt. Since the mine workers at Potosí and Oruro were so powerful that increased mining

taxes would have led to a coup, the government had little option but to turn to the nitrates

industry (Klein 2011: 139). In 1879, Bolivia imposed new taxes upon the Nitrates and Railroad

Company of Antofagasta. Chile protested that this was in violation of an existing treaty between

the two countries, though Bolivia argued that the company was British, not Chilean, rendering

the treaty irrelevant. Attempts at asset seizure by Bolivia provoked existing tensions regarding

territory, and led to war (Monteón 1975: 125). Bolivia – and Peru – lost large amounts of

territory to Chile, and Bolivia was left without a coastline.

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From silver to tin

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the expansion of railways and the growth of

heavy industry, combined with a collapse in production at European mines, increased demand

for Bolivian tin, which superseded silver as Bolivia’s most important export. Though mining

centres such as Huanuni, Oruro, and Catavi became more important than Potosí, structurally

little else changed. New domestic entrepreneurs emerged and the power of the silver mine-

owners declined rapidly, yet Bolivia retained a mono-productive, extractive export sector heavily

dependent on foreign capital (Smale 2010: 27).

By the 1930s, minerals accounted for ninety-five per cent of Bolivia’s exports, and tin

alone accounted for sixty per cent. Mining constituted fifteen per cent of GDP (Grindle and

Domingo 2003: 61). During World War II, Bolivia was the largest source of tin for the allies. Yet,

despite a dramatic rise in world tin prices, government intervention kept prices low, since Bolivia

was dependent on British custom. On the eve of the war, seventy-five per cent of Bolivian tin

ore was exported to Britain for smelting (Hillman 1990: 189 and 292). The price ceiling fostered

resentment in Bolivia, and played a large part in the overthrow of president Enrique Peñaranda

(Hillman 1990: 189). The mining industry was nationalised after the MNR-led national revolution

of 1952. Bolivia and Britain’s historical relationship is perhaps best summed up by John Hillman,

in his discussion of the effects of Britain’s wartime tin policies on Bolivia:

The post-war industry proved to have a very different structure from that which existed in 1939 […] But the core of the UK/Bolivia relationship was left intact. For Britain, that relationship was always narrowly commercial. Bolivia only existed as a source of concentrates to be smelted into metal. While a world market existed, price was largely immaterial, since whatever she paid Bolivia in sterling she would more than recoup through exports. When it was suspended, she was anxious to pay as little as possible. Such cold calculations were never affected by any concern with the human suffering of the miners and their families, nor with the political processes designed to overcome the distortions of a mono-product economy. Perhaps such a single-minded focus on purely commercial issues was essential to emerge intact from the thicket of war-time tin politics.

(Hillman 1990: 315)

The purpose of describing British involvement in Bolivia is not to imply that British

capital is entirely to blame for Bolivia’s economic problems and poverty levels, nor to claim that

successive Bolivian governments are beyond reproach. Rather, it is to illustrate the means by

which Bolivia has come to signify raw materials and profit in the British imaginary, where it

exists at all, and to demonstrate that historical power differentials have kept Bolivia in a weak

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position and rendered the country’s economy extremely vulnerable to international commodity

prices and political developments. The controversial nature of foreign investment in Bolivia has

not eliminated the European-imposed idea that an extractive export-led model is the path to

development; rather that it is a matter of control of those resources, and once the right balance

of ownership has been found, success will follow.

The decline of mining

It was noted earlier that the dominance of mining gave way to the increasing importance

of hydrocarbons. Various factors contributed to the decline of the mining sector. Juan Antonio

Morales (in Grindle and Domingo 2003: 217-219) argues that the mining unions became

disproportionately powerful, and consequently wages rose to the detriment of the long-term

finances of both the state mining company Corporación Minera de Bolivia (COMIBOL) and the

Bolivian economy. Morales also points to fiscal policy, which saw COMIBOL’s income from

exports overtaxed in order to fund the development of the hydrocarbons sector and Santa Cruz,

leaving COMIBOL unable to re-invest in the mines in the form of new technology. Effectively,

the state’s income from its traditional main export sector was used to facilitate both the

increased exploitation of the natural resource that would eventually surpass it, and the creation

of another boomtown, albeit a more diverse boomtown than Potosí.

However, Morales takes a broader view in a paper co-written with Justo Espejo (1994:

2), noting that legal uncertainty surrounding mining concessions also played a role in the

decline of mining. More importantly, Morales and Espejo, like Crabtree, Duffy, and Pearce

(1987), refer to the crucial role of tin price fluctuations and ultimately the 1985 tin crash. In

October of that year, the world price of tin dropped by fifty per cent, after the International Tin

Council (ITC) went bankrupt. The market collapsed, and in March of the following year the

London Metal Exchange (LME) cancelled the ITC’s trading contract. While the market had been

oversupplied for some time before the crash, the more immediate reasons were sharp

movements in sterling and dollar exchange rates (Crabtree, Duffy and Pearce 1987: 4). Mining

as a proportion of Bolivia’s GDP went from 10.5 per cent in 1981, and 7.9 per cent in the year

before the crash, to 4.8 per cent by 1987 (Morales and Espejo 1994: 13). Seventy per cent of

COMIBOL’s employees were made redundant by the end of 1986 (Crabtree, Duffy and Pearce

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1987: 7). As discussed in chapters two and three, many redundant miners migrated to the

Chapare region and became coca farmers. Those who remained working in the industry saw

the erosion of safety standards and working conditions as the mines were sold off to private

owners as part of the NPE, also discussed in chapters two and three. During the

aforementioned visit to Potosí in 2007, I was informed that oxygen, lighting, and lifts had been

provided during the state-owned era, and there was far greater mechanization of the mining

processes. Moreover, safety standards and working practices are completely unregulated and

the nature of payment is such that miners have an incentive to stay underground as long as

possible. Less obvious than the rise in unemployment and the decline of safety standards is the

reduction in public services that followed privatisation.

The tin crash roughly coincided with the increasing importance of hydrocarbons, and

from the 1990s onwards hydrocarbons became Bolivia’s biggest export. Nonetheless, mining

remains a key part of the Bolivian economy, constituting an average of 6.31 per cent of GDP

over the period 1988 to 2012, rising to an average of 7.31 per cent over the shorter period of

2002 to 2012. This contribution to GDP is actually higher than the corresponding figures for

hydrocarbons, which are discussed below, despite hydrocarbons now being the bigger export.

Moreover, mining employs more workers than hydrocarbons. Mining accounted for 22.17 per

cent of the US dollar value of Bolivian exports during the period 2002 to 2010, with zinc alone at

11.05 per cent and silver at 7.73 per cent. Though tin accounted for just 0.79 per cent of exports

over the same time period (Instituto Nacional Estadística 2011), in 2011 Bolivia was the world’s

fourth biggest producer of tin (Fraser 2012: para 6 of 18).

The term ‘mono-productive, extractive export sector’ has been used throughout this

section. Though less elegant than ‘mono-productive, extractive economy’, which has been used

by other writers, it does more accurately describe Bolivia’s economic situation. ‘Mono-productive,

extractive export sector’ is preferred since, despite the historical importance of mining and the

current importance of hydrocarbons, agriculture has always played a larger part in Bolivia’s

overall economy. Historically, more Bolivians have been engaged in agriculture than any other

industry, while mining never employed more than five per cent of the workforce (Crabtree, Duffy

and Pearce 1987: 58). Agriculture made the biggest contribution to GDP over the period 1988 to

2012, at 13.05 per cent. However, agricultural products have never been a major export,

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accounting for just 4.31 per cent of exports between 2002 and 2011 (Instituto Nacional

Estadística 2011). Moreover, despite the development of large agribusiness in Santa Cruz from

the 1970s onwards, the sector has historically been characterized by small-scale, informal

production, and consequently has been somewhat fragmented.2 The sector has never been a

major source of state revenue, either through taxes or outright state ownership. Consequently,

and most importantly for the purposes of this thesis, the sector has never been acclaimed as

the key to Bolivia’s ‘development’, nor the focal point for resource wars. As a result, agriculture

has been of less significance in British representations of Bolivia than the extractive industries.

In Bolivia, discussions of land and agriculture have largely been framed in terms of indigenous

rights and culture, rather than in strictly economic terms, therefore playing little part in the

fashioning of mainstream national identity as determined by the creole elite. Of course, the very

fact that agriculture is virtually ignored as a vehicle for development is symptomatic of the

imposition of European values upon the Bolivian polity, echoing the historical equation of nature

with barbarism. Since the European experience is assumed to be the model for all economic

development, it is understood that agriculture cannot be an engine for economic development

as that runs counter to the European model of progression from an agricultural to industrialized

economy.

Hydrocarbons

Large-scale exploitation of hydrocarbons in Bolivia began in 1921 with the entry of

Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, as mentioned earlier. However, it took some time for the

industry to become a major component of the Bolivian economy. As late as the 1950s,

hydrocarbons generated an annual average of 1.2 per cent of GDP. It was not until the 1970s

that the contribution to GDP went over five per cent, with an annual average of 5.7 per cent

during that decade (Morales and Espejo 1994: 13), as the development policies started in the

1950s began to take effect. Hydrocarbons as a proportion of GDP rose to seven per cent in

1990 (Aramayo Ruegenberg 2009: 20), remaining steady since then, at an annual average of

7.21 per cent of GDP from 2002 to 2012.

2 Large-scale agricultural production is becoming more and more important to the Bolivian economy, and land

ownership is becoming increasingly concentrated. Fundación Jubileo (2013: 2) notes that seventy per cent of land used in the cultivation of soya bean, Bolivia’s biggest cash crop, is owned by foreign companies.

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There are some noteworthy points of comparison between the mining and

hydrocarbons sector, particularly in terms of the role of foreign direct investment, and territorial

and military disputes. While British capital was at the forefront of early post-colonial mining and

the related infrastructure, it has played a lesser role in hydrocarbon exploitation. The entry of

the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey into Bolivia was part of the race between US, Dutch,

and British firms to secure control of the world’s oilfields, as the enormous strategic value of oil

became apparent and the US government decided to break with its isolationist policies. A small

number of wealthy Bolivians had tried to set up a domestic industry in the early twentieth

century, but the country’s mine- and land-owners were uninterested (Royuela Comboni 1996:

13 and 38). Exploration rights in the south-east of Bolivia were granted to the Richmond

Levering Company and Braden Group, both of New York, which then sold their concessions to

the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey a year later. The newly created Standard Oil

Company of Bolivia began accumulating more and more concessions and by 1922 had

acquired an estimated 4.6 million hectares (Royuela Comboni 1996: 38-40 and 61). Standard

Oil, with its financial clout and technical expertise, was regarded by many as ‘un sinónimo de

civilización y progreso y […] un capitalizador de la débil economía nacional’ (Royuela Comboni

1996: 62), that is, the company’s epistemically and economically privileged position furthered

the association of foreign capital with progress and civilization and thereby contributed to the

discourse of Latin subalternity. Nevertheless, Standard Oil’s Bolivian operations were not

without problems. The company was accused of fraud, failure to complete its contractual

obligations, and smuggling fuel to Argentina through a secret pipeline. It invested just US$17

million during its fifteen years operating in the country, rather than the US$50 million it had

committed to investing (Royuela Comboni 1996: 65).

The Chaco War

Much as nitrates and mining interests were at the core of the War of the Pacific, oil was

– or is at least popularly perceived to have been – central to the outbreak of the Chaco War of

1932 to 1935 between Paraguay and Bolivia. The Chaco, a semi-arid lowland region that

straddles Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina, has been the subject of many territorial

disputes. Around a quarter of Bolivian troops were killed, deserted, or died in captivity (Klein

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2011: 182), and Bolivia lost twenty thousand square miles of territory to Paraguay (Quesada

2011: 22). It is commonly believed that the opposing interests of Standard Oil and the Anglo-

Dutch transnational Royal Dutch Shell caused the war. The latter was operating in Argentina

and planned to expand into Bolivia prior to the war, while the former apparently smuggled oil

from Bolivia to Argentina, and attempted to supply the Paraguayans with fuel for the war.

However, Carlos Royuela Comboni (1996: 71-72) points out that hydrocarbons were not central

to either country’s economy before the war, and states that the potential for forestry and cattle-

raising – that is, timber and beef – led to war. Klein (2011: 175), noting that fighting took place

hundreds of miles away from the oilfields until late 1935, maintains that the real reason for war

was the domestically weak position of then-president Daniel Salamanca Urey, who provoked

hostilities as a diversionary tactic. Nevertheless, Bolivian forces did end up effectively defending

the interests of Standard Oil, and though the company declared itself to be neutral, the idea that

the Chaco War was a war for oil is one that has taken hold in the popular imagination.

Exacerbating the ill-feeling toward Standard Oil is the fact that the company turned down

requests to refine jet fuel on behalf of the Bolivian Air Force and, despite evidence of continuing

to export oil throughout the war, refused to increase production of petrol. The government

seized refineries during the war, and afterwards expelled Standard Oil despite legal challenges

by the company and threats of an economic embargo by the US government (Royuela Comboni

1996: 72-77). The war’s legacy in the popular imagination is crucial to this thesis, as the notion

that the interests of foreign multinationals operating in the extractive industries govern Bolivia,

rather than the interests of the Bolivian people, is central to the nation’s self-image, the 2003

Gas War, and ultimately the election of the MAS. Indeed, Royuela Comboni (1996: 73) asserts

that the aftermath of the war revealed ‘el núcleo de un movimiento político cuyo rasgo

fundamental desembocó en el nacionalismo’. Though ultimately this nationalist sentiment would

lead to the 1952 national revolution, the more immediate effect was the creation of the state

energy company, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) by the military

government led by David Toro in 1936 (Vargas Salgueiro 1996: 23-24).

Since its creation, YPFB has been (re-)nationalized or (re-)privatized several times

depending on the prevailing political and/or economic climate (Fernández Terán 2009). The

periods of nationalization are: 1937 to 1955, 1969 to 1996, and ostensibly 2006 to the present.

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It is the latter of these, and the period of privatization that immediately preceded it, that are of

most relevance to this thesis, though the first two periods will be mentioned as a point of

comparison.

Santa Cruz: A contemporary boomtown

As noted earlier, the transformation of hydrocarbons into Bolivia’s most important export

owes a great deal to policies aimed at developing the Santa Cruz region. Since the 1950s, state

funds have been used to promote migration to and commercial activity in the region in an

attempt to diversify the Bolivian economy and reduce reliance on mining. The majority of these

state funds were generated by COMIBOL, and most of the investment centred on the

development of the oil industry and promoting the cultivation of cash crops (Crabtree, Duffy and

Pearce 1987: 70). While such policies were undoubtedly aimed at diversifying the economy, the

actual outcome was to simply replace one dominant export for another. Since mining revenue

was diverted into the development of the oil industry rather than reinvested in the mining sector,

the competitiveness of the mining industry was undermined, and the effects of the 1985 tin

crash were more severe than perhaps would otherwise have been the case. Hydrocarbons

have come to be seen as the key to Bolivian economy and, as indicated above, have

superseded tin as Bolivia’s biggest export. Like colonial Potosí, the city of Santa Cruz has

become a boomtown, with a rapidly growing population, the creation of a local economic elite,

and large amounts of capital investment. It should be noted, however, that it is widely believed

that a significant proportion of Santa Cruz’s wealth is generated from the illicit trade in cocaine.

While the city is not a centre of cocaine production, it is a centre for cocaine trafficking, and

senior members of the drug trade reside there. In addition, many of Santa Cruz’s wealthiest

residents made their fortune in agribusiness. Consequently, Santa Cruz, though a boomtown, is

not quite as vulnerable to hydrocarbon price movements as Potosí was to mineral price

movements, though given the illegality of the cocaine trade it is naturally difficult to quantify its

contribution to the local economy. The development of Santa Cruz had significant political as

well as economic effects, creating an alternative power base removed from the trade union and

indigenous politics of the western highlands (Grindle and Domingo 2003: 6), which has posed a

significant source of opposition to the Morales administration.

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Neoliberalism & development rhetoric: Export oriented trade strategies

The NPE, devised by the US economist Jeffrey Sachs and the then-finance minister

Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, had a significant impact upon the hydrocarbons sector, as well as

the mining sector. Underpinning the neoliberal policies encapsulated by the policy was the belief

that export-oriented trade strategies, rather than import-substituting industrialisation and the

expansion of domestic markets, were key to the development of Latin America and the solution

to hyperinflation and high levels of government debt. As discussed by Rhys Jenkins (1997),

neoliberalism meant that the same trade liberalisation policies were advocated in Bolivia, with

its small industrial base, lack of skilled labour, and restricted infrastructure, as in middle-income,

more industrialised countries like Mexico and Chile. However, though trade liberalisation was

usually ardently supported by the US-dominated IMF and World Bank, these organisations were

initially somewhat unconvinced by the NPE. Trade liberalisation meant that protectionist policies

designed for the manufacturing sector were withdrawn, reversing attempts to diversify and

industrialise the economy and signalling a return to an emphasis on unprocessed raw materials,

‘reflecting static comparative advantage, [but] undermin[ing] a sector which is crucial in terms of

the country's dynamic comparative advantage’ (Jenkins 1997: 315).

Despite criticism of the state capitalist model, YPFB was an important source of state

revenue, comprising half the treasury receipts between 1986 and 1996 (Royuela Comboni 1996:

1). Nevertheless, the hydrocarbons industry was re-privatized in 1996 under the first Sánchez

de Lozada government with the introduction of the Ley de Hidrocarburos 1689 y 1731, which

introduced shared risk contracts and liberalized the transport, refining, domestic sales, and

export of hydrocarbons. While existing gas and oilfields were subject to royalty payments of fifty

per cent, royalty payments in relation to new sites were reduced to just eighteen per cent

(Asociación para la Cooperación con el Sur and Centro de Documentación e Información

Bolivia 2008: 20-21). For Roberto Fernández Terán (2009: 71), the privatization recalled the

colonial past:

[...] el Estado neocolonial y neoliberal instituía leyes que permitían el despojo de los recursos naturales, la transferencia de la propiedad de los recursos estratégicos a manos extranjeras y la puesta en marcha de un feroz mecanismo tributario y de pagos de deuda cargados sobre las espaldas de la población [...].

Fernández Terán (2009: 71)

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Despite the NPE’s emphasis on export-oriented growth, throughout the 1990s exports

as a percentage of GDP decreased, reaching a peak of 22.78 per cent in 1990, whereas

exports as a proportion of GDP had been 24.53 per cent in 1980 (Moslares García and others

2004: 30). Gas and oil prices were low, and gas export levels declined for a short period.

Nevertheless, hydrocarbons taxes still accounted for over twenty per cent of government

revenue in 1999 (Andersen and Faris 2004: 68). FDI flows into Bolivia grew rapidly between

1985 and 2002, though such investment was largely confined to hydrocarbons and

telecommunications, which have low levels of vertical or horizontal integration into the wider

economy (Moslares García and others 2004: 30). Under the privatization programme, fifty per

cent stakes in state enterprises were put to international tender. Since major sales involved the

hydrocarbons and service sectors, capital inflows became heavily concentrated in those sectors.

Investment in the hydrocarbons industry rose to US$401.3 million by 2001, over five times more

than YPFB had invested in the years before privatization (Hindery 2004: 282). Between 2000

and 2002, the industry accounted for 47.9 per cent of FDI in Bolivia (Nunnenkamp, Schweickert

and Wiebelt 2007: 430-31). In 2012, investment in hydrocarbons comprised sixty three per cent

of total FDI (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean 2013: 27), despite the

industry undergoing a so-called ‘nationalization’ six years earlier, as discussed later in this

chapter.

Though exports as a percentage of GDP remained relatively stable, the export sector

became increasingly dominated by hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons accounted for 43.26 per cent

of the dollar value of Bolivian exports between 2002 and 2011, with gas alone constituting 38.58

per cent (Instituto Nacional Estadística 2011). As of 1 January 2003, Bolivia has 55 trillion cubic

feet (TCF) of certified natural gas reserves, and 957 million barrels of certified crude oil reserves

(Andersen and Faris 2004: 57). The natural gas reserves are the second largest in Latin

America. The majority of the currently known reserves were found in the late 1990s, at a time

when energy demands in nearby Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay were increasing (Spronk

and Webber 2007: 34). Prior to the 1990s discoveries, Bolivia’s gas reserves were thought to be

just 6 TCF, and oil reserves were negligible.

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The impact of increased FDI flows into Bolivia on poverty levels and employment has

not been uncontroversial. Nunnenkamp, Schweickert and Wiebelt, citing a study undertaken by

Klasen and others (2004), indicate that there was:

[...] a break in poverty and inequality trends in the late 1990s. For example, income inequality declined in 1994-9, but the Gini coefficient almost returned to its pre-reform level in 2002. As regards absolute poverty, [...] poverty in capital cities declined in the aftermath of the 1989 reform programme, but took an upturn again in the late 1990s.

(Nunnenkamp, Schweickert and Wiebelt 2007: 432)

Though other studies indicate that external shocks such as El Niño, declining overall capital

inflows, and terms-of-trade losses played a part in the reversal of poverty reduction, the reversal

began ‘shortly after FDI inflows gathered momentum’ (Nunnenkamp, Schweickert and Wiebelt

2007: 432). Data show that FDI has put some downward pressure on income, particularly in the

case of unskilled workers. FDI inflows into Bolivia were concentrated heavily in the skill-

intensive hydrocarbons industry, and technological investment by foreign companies has

tended to be in skill-intensive technologies (Nunnenkamp, Schweickert and Wiebelt 2007: 432-

433). The British-owned BG Bolivia Corporation employed just 45 people in 2002, while Brazil’s

Petrobras employed 100, the highest of any foreign-owned company in that sector (United

Nations Conference on Trade and Development 2004a: 17). Yet despite the minimal impact of

FDI upon poverty levels and local employment rates, the analysis of British press articles in

particular will reveal an almost universal tacit assumption that privatization had been good for

the Bolivian economy.

Guerra del Gas

Public discontent regarding Bolivia’s natural resources would lead to a number of

protests during the early years of the twenty-first century and ultimately would precipitate the

end of two presidencies. The controversy was not confined to privatization, and revealed the

lingering effects of the past upon the popular psyche. Throughout Sánchez de Lozada’s second

presidency, a potential gas pipeline to the Pacific coast, which would have to be routed through

either Chile or Peru, was discussed. The Chilean route is generally considered the best option

from a technical perspective, but the prospect of having to cooperate with Chile to use territory

that many Bolivians regard as having been stolen during the War of the Pacific proved politically

toxic. The debate also failed to raise the possibility that Bolivia could be more than simply an

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exporter of raw materials: ‘[...] se trataba de un falso debate que omitía lo más importante: la

creación de empleos y cálculo de la renta petrolera para el Estado’ (Asociación para la

Cooperación con el Sur and Centro de Documentación e Información Bolivia 2008: 9), though

many social movements opposed any gas being exported at all, arguing that Bolivia’s natural

resources should not only be controlled by Bolivians but consumed by Bolivians.

The Guerra del Agua, discussed in chapter two, was an important precursor to the

Guerra del Gas, which took place in October 2003. Social movements in the five western

departments of Cochabamba, Chuquisaca, La Paz, Oruro, and Potosí took to the streets to

demand the re-nationalization of hydrocarbons, and an end to the export of gas (Fernández

Terán 2008: 75). The strikes, roadblocks, and demonstrations escalated to the point that the

country virtually ground to a halt, especially in the city of La Paz. The government’s answer was

to use the military against the protestors of El Alto.3 The Guerra del Gas as a whole resulted in

sixty civilians deaths, and two hundred serious injuries. After the El Alto massacre, Sánchez de

Lozada resigned and fled to the US (Asociación para la Cooperación con el Sur and Centro de

Documentación e Información Bolivia 2008: 34-35).

Vice-president Carlos Mesa became president, and the political agenda became

dominated by the protestors’ central demands for the re-nationalization of hydrocarbons and a

constituent assembly. Mesa called a national referendum to determine the general direction of

energy policy and the level of support for Sánchez de Lozada’s Ley 1689, which had been

called unconstitutional. Mesa proposed adding a thirty-two per cent tax to the existing eighteen

per cent royalty payments, effectively splitting the profits evenly between the state and private

corporations (Asociación para la Cooperación con el Sur and Centro de Documentación e

Información Bolivia 2008: 37). Despite a boycott of the referendum by most social movements,

who argued that it was not radical enough, all of Mesa’s proposals were passed. The proposals

were later enshrined in law with the Ley de Hidrocarburos 3058. The new law prompted further

protests, and though Mesa refused to use force against the protesters as Sánchez de Lozada

had, he eventually resigned in June 2005.

3 The geography of the city of La Paz is an important aspect of Bolivia’s social protests. To all intents and purposes,

there is one main road out of La Paz, which is located in a narrow valley in the western altiplano. The road splits into east and west just before reaching the newer city of El Alto, which sits on the plateau above La Paz. The demographics of El Alto make it a key location for grassroots organizations and radicalism. The position of the highway means that roadblocks by the inhabitants of El Alto are an extremely effective form of protest, essentially cutting La Paz off from the rest of the country.

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Decreto Supremo 28701

On 1 May 2006, Morales announced that the hydrocarbons industry would be

nationalized. The term ‘nationalization’ was used frequently in MAS discourse to describe the

intervention in the industry and, as will be demonstrated in the second half of this chapter, both

the British and Bolivian press frequently used the term too. Yet the term is not an appropriate

description of the actions taken. Morales and the then-Minister for Hydrocarbons Andrés Soliz

Rada announced Decreto Supremo 28701 – called ‘Héroes del Chaco’ – from the Petrobras-

San Alberto gasfield. Surrounded by the army, Morales made use of radical-sounding language

to signal a bold and dramatic move (Harten 2011: 180). Yet despite the military presence, and

dramatic soundbites, no assets were seized and complete control of the industry was not

transferred to the state.

Rather, the decree stipulated that royalties paid to the state would be increased to

eighty two per cent, and thus the measure was a tax increase rather than a nationalization.

However, the increase was a temporary measure that would only apply permanently to those

companies that did not renegotiate their contracts within 180 days (Webber 2011a: 80).

Moreover, the decree only applied to companies that had produced more than one hundred

million cubic feet of gas per day in 2005 – affecting just Petrobras, Repsol, and Total-Fina

(Harten 2011: 181). In addition, the decree could not, under Bolivian law, supersede a law that

contradicted it. That is, Decreto Supremo 28701 could not supersede Mesa’s Ley 3058 where

the two conflicted (Webber 2011a: 81). The decree also resurrected the state oil company,

YPFB, and stipulated that YPFB was to obtain majority control of the commercial arms of the

privatized companies. However, even this aspect is not as radical as it may sound, since the

state already held forty eight per cent of such operations as part of the national pension fund,

known as BONOSOL (Harten 2011: 181).

The dominance of the energy transnationals was not brought to an end by the so-called

nationalization decree, nor the new contracts. The majority of exploration remains in the hands

of foreign corporations (Fernández Terán 2009: 84). Despite the MAS’s use of the term

‘nationalization’, the party did not claim to have expelled foreign companies, nor even to want to

do so. Morales was careful to stress that the MAS wanted to increase the role of the state in

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partnership with, not instead of, foreign companies (Harten 2011: 197). In October 2006, the

government announced that it had renegotiated contracts with twelve energy companies,

including Repsol and Petrobras (Webber 2011a: 81). During the interim period, an export

agreement had been signed with Argentina, in which Bolivia committed to exporting 7.7 million

cubic metres of gas per day at a price of US$5 per million BTU until the end of 2006. Thereafter,

a flexible arrangement would come into operation, whereby the price was linked to petroleum

commodity prices on international markets. It has been estimated that the arrangement

amounts to a forty eight per cent price increase (Webber 2011a: 81). In February 2007, a deal

was reached with Brazil that the government claimed was worth an additional US$144 million in

state revenue (Webber 2011a: 81-82).

The decree has not been insignificant. The price increases gained through the new

export contracts, combined with the tax increase, meant that state revenue from hydrocarbons

rose dramatically. The increased state revenue has been accompanied by relatively high levels

of growth. Real GDP growth was 4.7 per cent on average during the period 2006-2011,

compared to an average of 3.3 per cent over the period 1996-2005 (International Monetary

Fund 2012: 4).4 Yet despite the benefits to the state, the decree was not particularly radical.

Roberto Fernández Terán describes the ‘nationalization’ as

[...] más una reforma parcial que se ha limitado a recuperar dos refinerías, una transportadora, una parte mayoritaria del paquete accionario de dos empresas petroleras y una mayor participación en la renta petrolera, dejando la mayor parte de las reservas de hidrocarburos bajo el control y explotación de los grandes consorcios transnacionales.

(Fernández Terán 2009: 27)

Moreover, not only was the decree not an especially radical move, but when viewed as

part of the MAS’s overall development strategy, the decree underlines the party’s continuation

of the extractive model. Bolivia’s new constitution - a watered-down version of the MAS’s vision

of a refounded Bolivia - makes plain the centrality of natural resources to the Bolivian economy.

Though the MAS government has made much of its plans for ‘industrialization’ that is, plans to

invest in mechanisms for refining and adding value to raw materials, the implementation of such

4 The IMF notes that ‘[...] the Bolivian economy was one of the few in Latin America to record positive growth during the

2008-2009 global crisis and to maintain that resilience throughout the following years’ (International Monetary Fund 2013: paragraph 3 of 10). The Fund’s projected growth rate for 2013 is 6.7 per cent, which it says will be driven largely by natural gas exports and public investment. The statement indicates Bolivia is vulnerable to external shocks, especially a drop in international hydrocarbons prices, but notes that the government’s ‘prudent macroeconomic policies’ have allowed a build-up of international reserves and hydrocarbon revenues, and consequently should help mitigate the effects of such shocks.

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programmes has been limited. Moreover, the bulk of public investment has gone into large-

scale infrastructure projects, such as a controversial highway in the Amazonian region that will

form part of a transnational route linking Brazil’s Atlantic coast with Chile’s Pacific coastline,

rather than education or public health. Such infrastructure projects, whilst undoubtedly aimed at

expanding the economy, are concerned with enabling the extractive economy, much like the

nineteenth century railway projects were. In the wider context of the MAS’s development

policies, the ‘nationalization’ is symptomatic of the failure to re-orient Bolivia away from an

extractive model, and does nothing to counter the idea of Bolivia as a supplier of raw materials

to the West, nor the idea that an export-led economy is the key to Bolivian development.

Jeffery R. Webber points out that the Plan Nacional de Desarrollo (PND) 2006-2010:

[...] signals only modest breaks with the general neoliberal development model of previous years [...] fundamentally predicated on the continuation of an export-led economy based on non-value added, primary natural resource commodities, most importantly hydrocarbons and mining minerals, the exploitation of which will continue to be controlled fundamentally by transnational capital [...] the plan’s basic foundation will be oriented toward reducing aggregate domestic demand, maintaining low inflation, respecting the independence of the central bank, and therefore securing a tight lid on salaries and a legal framework that will prove attractive to transnational capital seeking to invest in export sectors.

(Webber 2011a: 75)

Webber (2011a: 75-76) also notes that while the PND indicated that public investment would

increase to 11.9 per cent of GDP by the end of the plan’s term, most of the investment would be

the area of basic infrastructure, local government, and support for small-scale production and

export of niche products. Only US$25 million – 12.8 per cent – will be reinvested in YPFB, and

the role of FDI in the industry was expected to increase. As a result, the PND neither moves

away from an extractive export sector, nor strengthens the position of the state against

transnational capital in the hydrocarbons industry. Nevertheless, the British and Bolivian press

tend to depict Morales and the MAS as part of the radical left, in complete opposition to the

established system, as will be made evident by the second half of this chapter. This tendency is

indicative of how entrenched the assumptions of capitalism are, and how natural, and indeed

inevitable, western control of Latin American natural resources has come to be seen. That is,

the system that enables large corporations based in wealthy nations to profit hugely from the

natural resources of poorer nations is so ingrained that even minor changes to that system are

regarded as enormously subversive. It also demonstrates that any deviation from the globalized

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financial system will not be tolerated. Of course, Morales plays on this by positioning himself for

a national audience as a radical who challenges informal imperialism.

Despite claims from the opposition that the economic policies of the MAS government

would deter FDI, foreign capital has not fled Bolivia. In 2012, total FDI flows to Bolivia

constituted 3.9 per cent of GDP, an increase from 2.5 per cent of GDP in 2006 (Fundación

Jubileo 2013: 4). However, FDI continues to be increasingly concentrated in the hydrocarbons

sector. As noted earlier, the sector attracted 47.9 per cent of FDI between 2000 and 2002. It

attracted 37 per cent of FDI in 2011, rising to 63 per cent in 2012 (Banco Central de Bolivia

2012c: 9). In 2012, YPFB and the transnational operators made a combined investment of

US$1.593 billion in greenfield hydrocarbon sites, mainly in the department of Tarija. This figure

is projected to increase by 40 per cent in 2013, and YPFB is committed to making 64 per cent of

these investments (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean 2013: 27).

Despite the nature of the decree, and the new contracts, it was politically expedient for

all parties to call the measures ‘nationalization’. The MAS was able to parade its leftist

credentials, and the term was easy shorthand for the press to use in order to represent Morales

as a radical who posed a significant threat to the neoliberal system, be that for good or ill. The

MAS was able to please its base by claiming to have fulfilled its promises, and help prevent any

splintering of support and drifts towards more radical groups. Moreover, it was able to draw

upon popular memory by linking the decree to the national revolution of 1952 and especially to

the Chaco War. The use of the term ‘nationalization’ on the part of both the British and Bolivian

press, meanwhile, can be regarded largely as a simple manifestation of the idea that any

attempt by a Latin American government to deviate from a low-tax, small state model is a

radical move.

The evolution and effects of Bolivia’s extractive economy can therefore be summed up

thus: ‘En cada uno de esos ciclos el capital extranjera generó siempre economías de enclave,

que florecían y declinaban sin redistribuir beneficios al conjunto de la población. Islas de

prosperidad que convivieron con elevados índices de pobreza segmentación étnica y

desigualdad social’ (Asociación para la Cooperación con el Sur and Centro de Documentación

e Información Bolivia 2008: 8).

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British capital in Bolivia today

While British capital played an important role across Latin America throughout the

nineteenth century, its role was gradually reduced over the course of the twentieth century as

US, German, and Japanese capital came to displace it. In the context of Britain’s weakened

post-World War II economy, Latin America came to occupy a marginal space as a trading

partner or place to invest in, and by the early 1990s British capital was of significance only in

Brazil (Margheritis 1992: 560 & 572). From 1996 to 2002, total FDI flows into Bolivia originating

in the UK constituted 7.49 per cent of total inflows of FDI, peaking at 11.06 per cent in 1998.

This made the UK the sixth biggest source of FDI during the overall period and the third biggest

in 1998 (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development 2004a: 9). Meanwhile, British

FDI stocks – the accumulated value of British-owned assets in Bolivia – were US$1141.91

million on average over the period 1990 to 2001, reaching a peak of US$2194.6 million in 1997

(United Nations Conference on Trade and Development 2004a: 11). In contrast, a report on FDI

flows to and from the UK (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development 2004b)

makes no specific reference to Bolivia, indicating that though UK capital forms a significant

proportion of FDI in Bolivia, Bolivia does not account for a significant proportion of outward

British investment.

FDI in Bolivia’s hydrocarbons sector has historically been dominated by US and

Brazilian capital. US capital was central to the early years of hydrocarbon development, as

evinced by the role of Standard Oil, while Gulf Oil’s Bolivian subsidiary was amongst the private

companies affected by the 1969 nationalization. Brazilian involvement has taken the form of

both state and private investment. For example, a 1938 treaty between Brazil and Bolivia

allowed for joint exploration of the Chaco region, and arranged for preference to be given to

Bolivian-Brazilian companies when granting concessions (Vargas Salgueiro 1996: 26).

Nevertheless, US investment in Bolivia’s hydrocarbons sector has dwindled considerably in

recent years, though Brazilian investment remains strong. In 2012, the Spanish multinational

Repsol and Brazil’s state energy company, Petrobras, accounted for almost two thirds of

Bolivian hydrocarbon production (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean

2013: 27). The two companies invested a combined total of US$544 million in the sector in that

year. The British-owned BG Bolivia, although spending a relatively small US$26 million, was the

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fifth biggest foreign investor in the sector, while the Argentine-US venture Vintage invested

US$4 million (Fundación Jubileo: 7).

British interests, in the sense of British energy companies operating in Bolivia, are

therefore less directly affected by policy changes than nineteenth-century investors were.

However, the evolution of global finance – and the prominent role of the City of London in the

global financial network – is such that the borders between national capital have become less

defined than they were in colonial times, or even at the turn of the last century. That is, the

nature of global capital markets means that traders, brokers, and investors physically located in

one particular country may be affected by the fortunes of a company based in another country

but operating in a third. The central role the City of London plays in both the UK’s economy and

the global markets means that British interests are affected by non-British companies operating

in non-British territory, to a greater degree than was the case in the past. This means that

paradoxically, while British financial interests become even more enmeshed in the global

system, British investors are engaged in an even less meaningful sense with Latin America(ns)

than British investors were in the early post-independence era. Of course, this breakdown of

national borders in relation to capital means that the global financial system benefits a global

financial elite as much as national interests or national elites, yet the legacy of colonialism is

such that, for the most part, wealth remains concentrated in the same locations year after year.

Bolivia’s energy sources in the British press

This section analyses the coverage of Bolivia’s hydrocarbons in the British press in

order to determine the extent to which European profit-seeking behaviour is supported by the

British press, and to what extent that support is given through patterns of representation and

rhetoric that reproduce those patterns outlined in the work of those writers discussed in chapter

one. This part of the corpus is made up of 144 articles that appeared in the UK press between

2003 and 2010 and both focus upon hydrocarbons and feature or mention Evo Morales. This

simple figure is important in and of itself. As discussed in the section relating to methodology,

the Newsbank search at the beginning of the research process yielded over a thousand articles,

which were then broken down into categories based on subject matter, and the three biggest

categories that focused mainly on Bolivia were selected for discussion. Table 4.1 gives a

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breakdown of the ten largest categories. The categories in italics are comprised of articles that

are not really about Morales or Bolivia specifically, and either focus on some general aspect of

Latin America or just mention Morales in passing. The results demonstrate that energy is the

single biggest category by a significant margin, with 144 articles.

TABLE 4.1: UK PRESS ARTICLES ON BOLIVIA BY SUBJECT MATTER (TEN MOST FREQUENT CATEGORIES

ONLY)

Category Number of articles

Energy 144

Elections & Referenda 104

Foreign elections & politics 100

Latin American Left 70

Hugo Chávez 48

Coca & Cocaine 43

Regional divide 41

Football 35

Latin America-US relations 32

Chilean miners 24

The breakdown of these 144 articles by newspaper and year, as per Table 4.2,

demonstrates that the frequency of the energy category is due to the large number of articles

published by the Financial Times. The Financial Times is of course a specialist newspaper

whose core market is comprised of investors, financiers, business people, bankers, and so

forth. Furthermore, the Economist, another specialist publication, has the second highest

number of energy-related articles.5 The fact that energy is the biggest category, and that two

financial publications account for 68.05 per cent of that category, suggests that energy is a topic

that is of interest to a narrow, business-oriented audience, not a general news audience. More

importantly, it also suggests that Bolivia is of the most interest to the UK press when

transnational capital is involved. Interestingly, though mining remains a key industry in Bolivia,

5 It should be noted that the Economist is published weekly rather than daily so it has a proportionately similar number

of articles to the Financial Times.

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the database search yielded only twenty four articles on mining. While BP and BG are/were

amongst the major players in Bolivia’s hydrocarbons industry, there remains little UK capital in

the Bolivian mining sector. This suggests that Bolivia is of most interest to the UK press when

UK capital is involved, as opposed to just transnational capital in general, as less attention is

paid to those industries with few British interests.

TABLE 4.2: ENERGY-RELATED ARTICLES IN THE UK PRESS BY NEWSPAPER AND YEAR

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 TOTAL

Financial Times 3

49 14 7 1 8 82

Economist 1 1 2 9 1 1 1 16

Guardian 10 1 11

The Times 1 8 2 11

Daily Telegraph 7 1 8

Independent 4 1 5

Observer 4 4

Sunday Telegraph 2 1 3

Daily Mail 1 1

Independent on Sunday 1 1

Sunday Times 1 1

Daily Express 1 1

TOTAL 1 5 2 96 16 8 2 14 144

The temporal spread of articles indicates that there is a huge spike in 2006, and that

once again over half the articles were in the Financial Times. It was on 1 May 2006 that Morales

announced Decreto Supremo 28701. Though, as has been discussed, the term ‘nationalization’

is a little misleading, the transnational corporations involved in Bolivia’s gas industry were

potentially going to lose a lot of money. This indicates that not only is Bolivia of most interest to

the UK press when UK capital is involved, it is of the most interest when British investments are

under threat. Of course, this relates to the British press’s role as the contemporary capitalist

vanguard, a role which will be discussed in more detail at the end of this section.

The discourse of ‘nationalization’

Many of the newspaper articles label the decree a ‘nationalization’. As demonstrated by

Table 4.3, the UK press generally repeated MAS’s term, with little deviation regardless of the

various political leanings of each newspaper. Within 117 articles there are 212 references to

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‘nationalization’ or some form of the verb ‘nationalize’. It is fair to say that people often have

strong opinions on nationalization in principle, and use of the term would engender certain

reactions from each newspaper’s readership – that is, a stereotypical Guardian reader is less

likely to deem automatically nationalization a ‘bad’ thing than a stereotypical Economist reader.

This suggests that, rather than accommodating an accurate yet complex picture, the UK press

prefers to rely on a catch-all term with clear ideological connotations that satisfies their core

readership’s prejudices and expectations about a left-wing Latin American president. As

demonstrated by chapter two, Latin American politics are portrayed as simple, with the region’s

politicians firmly on one side or the other of the political spectrum. Such simplifications recall

Foster’s comments regarding the Chile and Pinochet in the UK press, which reduced the nation

to a place of unambiguous political division, rather than of complexity and compromise.

TABLE 4.3: REFERENCES TO NATIONALIZATION IN UK ENERGY-RELATED ARTICLES BY NEWSPAPER AND

YEAR6

References to nationalization

Number of relevant

articles 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 TOTAL

Financial Times 71 93 6 15 4 15 133

Economist 9 12 2 6 20

Guardian 10 17 1 18

The Times 6 9 9

Daily Telegraph 7 3 3

Independent 5 11 3 14

Observer 4 7 7

Sunday Telegraph 2 1 1

Daily Mail 1 2 2

Independent on Sunday 1 1 1

Sunday Times 0 0

Daily Express 1 2 2

TOTAL 117 157 9 15 4 27 212

The only real exception is the Daily Telegraph, which along with its sister paper the

Sunday Telegraph has more articles than references to nationalization. The Daily Telegraph

indicates that the measure is less radical than it sounds:

6 Since the so-called nationalization took place on 1 May 2006, Table 4.3 only includes articles published on or after that

date.

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BOLIVIA promised to squeeze foreign mining firms yesterday, a day after it shocked the oil industry by sending soldiers to take control of its gas fields […] Despite the talk of nationalisation, Mr Morales's actions are not as radical as might initially appear. Buried within his talk of imposing 82 per cent taxes was the qualification that this would only apply to fields that last year extracted more than 100 million cubic feet of gas, which applies to just two concessions […] "None of our fields fall into that category,'' said Neil Burrows, spokesman for British Gas, another of the largest foreign investors in Bolivia. "However we are no clearer as to what the government wants to do and so future investment is on hold until the uncertainty is over.''

(Daily Telegraph 3 May 2006)

‘Nationalization’ and ‘radical’ would be viewed negatively by the paper’s typically conservative

readership, so here the Telegraph, despite being generally critical of Morales, is not sacrificing

accuracy by pandering to that readership. However, it does note that the situation is uncertain –

a vital piece of information for potential investors. The propensity of the British press to carry

information relevant to investors – that is, to act as the capitalist vanguard – will be discussed

fully below.

Nonetheless, a later Daily Telegraph article states that ‘[...] Evo Morales of Bolivia

nationalised the country’s national gas sector last week’, while the Sunday Telegraph, without

using the term nationalization, claims that the state would now have full control of the sector:

SOUTH AMERICAN leaders met on Thursday for crisis talks after Bolivia's Evo Morales fulfilled his promise to retake control of the country's oil and gas resources by sending troops into more than 50 sites run by foreign-owned energy companies on Monday.

(Sunday Telegraph 7 May 2006)

The rest of the newspapers simply accept the MAS’s version of events. The

Independent on Sunday claims that ‘President Evo Morales nationalised all of Bolivia’s gas and

oil reserves’ (Independent on Sunday 7 May 2006: 12), while its daily counterpart informs

readers about ‘The dramatic Labour Day decision by the Bolivian President Evo Morales to

nationalise the energy industry’ (Independent 3 May 2006: 26), and how ‘Bolivian President Evo

Morales met regional leaders yesterday to try to shore-up diplomatic relations, after shocking

them by nationalising his country’s rich gas and oil fields at a stroke on Monday’ (Independent 5

May 2006: 31).

A Guardian headline claims that ‘Bolivia’s swoop for gas reserves stuns energy giants:

EU and US caught out by nationalisation move’ (Guardian 3 May 2006). The Observer also

regurgitates Morales’s term nationalization, with statements such as ‘the Latin American

country's renationalisation of its prized gas assets’ (Observer 25 June 2006), ‘The Latin

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American country, led by socialist president Evo Morales, recently renationalised its energy

industry’ (Observer 25 June 2006), and ‘[...] the Latin American state announced it was

renationalising its gas and oil industries’ (Observer 24 September 2006).

The Economist, meanwhile, despite describing the decree in reasonable detail,

consistently describes it as a nationalization: ‘The nationalization- and especially the

circumstances in which it was done- reverberated around South America’ (Economist 6 May

2006), and ‘On May 1st Bolivia’s socialist president, Evo Morales, nationalised his country’s oil

and gas industry with a bang [...] The nationalization decree hiked royalties on the biggest gas

fields to 82%, pending talks on new contracts’ (Economist 6 May 2006). The Economist does on

occasion indicate that the term is used somewhat loosely, by putting it in inverted commas: ‘[...]

Evo Morales, Bolivia’s socialist president, announced the “nationalisation” of his country’s oil

and gas on May 1st’. Such examples have not been included in Table 4.3. However, such

qualifications are not very common – only two in ten articles, compared with ten times as many

straightforward references to nationalization – and for the most part the Economist disseminates

the idea that the decree constitutes outright nationalization.

The Financial Times, with 133 references in seventy-one articles, also disseminates the

idea that the decree constitutes outright nationalization. Despite also including a considerable

amount of detail, the paper makes numerous statements which equate the measure with

nationalization, such as: ‘The Bolivian government’s position on nationalisation begins from the

premise that the contracts under which foreign investors are currently operating in the natural

gas sector are unconstitutional’ (Financial Times 4 May 2006: 9), ‘Bolivia last Sunday

nationalised its energy industry’ (Financial Times 5 May 2006: 15), ‘ [...] the recent decision by

Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president, to nationalise his country’s gas fields will give him a boost

domestically’ (Financial Times 9 May 2006: 17), and ‘Bolivia, which moved to nationalise its gas

industry last month, is now demanding sharp increases in the price of gas to be exported to

Argentina to 5.50USD per million BTU’ (Financial Times 9 June 2006: 8).7

Unsurprisingly, given the sheer number of Financial Times articles involved in this part

of the corpus, there are exceptions, mostly clustered around February 2007: ‘Brazil yesterday

agreed to pay more for Bolivian gas exports after months of fraught negotiations that followed

7 BTU = British thermal unit

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La Paz’s “nationalisation” of the hydrocarbons sector last May’ (Financial Times 16 February

2007: 5), ‘[Morales] also used troops against demonstrators in southern Bolivia demanding a

more radical nationalisation of the gas sector, which has amounted to little more than a hefty tax

increase’ (Financial Times 22 February 2007), and:

These [hydrocarbons service] contracts are regarded by most of the powerful leftwing social movements as having introduced a modest tax increase dressed up as “nationalisation”. Mr Morales’s use of the army against protestors who shut down domestic oil pipelines to demand “true nationalisation” is likely to inflame the situation further.

(Financial Times 5 February 2007)

However, the paper then reverts back to referring to the decree as a nationalisation: ‘Mr

Morales’s decision last year to nationalise energy resources has made many foreign energy

companies wary of investing in Bolivia’ (Financial Times 14 December 2007: 14), and ‘A blast

from the past, here comes nationalisation again: Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s populist president,

nationalised the largest remaining private telecommunications and electricity companies last

year, while President Evo Morales has done the same for Bolivia’s natural gas industry’

(Financial Times 19 January 2008: 9). The last of these is an interesting manifestation of

development rhetoric, which will be discussed fully later in this section, insofar as it equates

privatization with progress, implying that the laissez-faire economics currently favoured by the

British establishment are inevitable and universal. There is no obvious reason for the temporary

change in tone, and it appears that while the Financial Times is careful to include details of the

decree itself, it is content to use the term ‘nationalization’ for the sake of brevity, if not accuracy.

A lost world

More important than accuracy, or lack thereof, regarding the decree are the ways in

which the UK press contextualizes Bolivia and its energy sources. The UK press often places

Bolivian energy-related stories – and in particular stories about the ‘nationalization’ – in the

wider context of geopolitical power differentials, reflecting contemporaneous concerns about

energy security, the decline of the West, and the increased power of the BRIC economies.

Bolivia itself is often incidental to the reports, concurring with Kevin Foster’s argument that

British treatment of Latin America often says more about UK debates and problems than it does

about Latin America itself. It suggests that the energy industry is an arena in which large powers

jostle for position, and the weaker producing nations are not particularly important.

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However, discourse representation figures, discussed further later in this section,

indicate that Bolivians are given a voice by the UK press, and that Bolivians are not the silent

objects of the European gaze that was seen in nineteenth-century travel writing. For the sake of

clarity, it should be noted that while some of the UK energy-related articles initially appear to

take Bolivia as the main subject matter yet ultimately ignore it, others are clearly focused on

other countries or global energy in general. The latter group are worthy of discussion insofar as

they reflect concerns regarding energy security and geopolitical power structures and

consequently are referred to and quoted from below, but are not included in the discourse

representation statistics, since including such articles could skew the results to suggest that

Bolivian voices are ignored by the British press.

Rather than reporting on the effects the decree would have on Bolivia, three of the four

Observer energy-related articles position Bolivia as a minor detail in Russia’s post-Soviet

relationship with the West. Here, Bolivia is rendered inconsequential and remote, and Russia is

a threat to the natural global pecking order:

Energy: Diplomacy from gunboat to gas pump […] pessimists see the recent grumblings, from the Ukraine to Latin America, as a sign that competition for energy resources can only get more intense, even bloody. The stand of Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez can be regarded as a bit of internal politicking dressed up for foreign consumption. Neither on their own is big enough to affect the global energy market (though Venezuela does have significant amounts of oil) and South America is too far off the energy mainstream to sway the balance. But their new militancy will exacerbate American fears that they will have to act quickly to reassert their control over world energy. Russia is far more serious. Potentially the biggest oil and gas station on the planet, it is politically and economically unstable. The temptation for Vladimir Putin is to use its enormous energy power as an extension of state policy, via the world’s biggest energy company, Gazprom, maybe even as an instrument to re-establish Russian control of eastern Europe and threaten the West.

(Observer 11 June 2006)

It should be said that the above-quoted article is written in such a way that suggests the

journalist may be sardonically aping the discourse of such ‘pessimists’, though it is not an out-

and-out parody. The journalist Frank Kane’s other contributions to the Observer are replete with

barbed comments and swipes at hubristic politicians. Consequently, it may be argued that to

criticise the piece is to miss the point and that it is an example of UNSIG without commitment to

the full ideational meaning of the secondary discourse. Nevertheless, the repetition of various

representations does contribute to their dissemination, so it is worth noting that the

representation of Russia as an unstable threat to the West carries with it the implication that

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Russia would be a terrible candidate for the world’s most powerful nation. It is reminiscent of the

way early representations of Latin America in Britain hid behind a veneer of anti-conquest

rhetoric in order to discredit Spain as the imperial villains to Britain’s benign businessmen, and

effectively proclaims the West’s innocence whilst asserting its hegemonic power through global

trade and finance. Another article in the Observer addresses concerns about Russian power

and its repercussions for British interests more directly:

Russia's gas giant learns how to tango: But Gazprom's move into Latin America could trip up European and US interests

Gazprom, the Russian gas giant, has taken everyone by surprise with a mooted investment worth up to $3bn in Bolivia - just as Western firms threaten to withdraw following the Latin American country's renationalisation of its prized gas assets […] And it bodes ill for firms - including Britain's BG - that have already invested hundreds of millions of dollars in developing Bolivia's large gas fields […] The company's enormous clout has made its westward expansion politically controversial, and Gaddy calls its Bolivia agreement a 'marriage of the outcasts’ […] But Western politicians will be most worried by its wider implications. Gazprom is effectively controlled by the Kremlin and its ambitions look likely to provoke a heated debate at next month's G8 meeting in St Petersburg […] Gazprom's Bolivian venture could be seen as Russia's defiant response to the US. 'It's part of a wider game,' says Chris Weafer, an analyst at Alfa Bank in Moscow.

(Observer 25 June 2006)

This excerpt insinuates that capitalist expansion abroad is acceptable in the case of BG, yet

Gazprom’s profit-seeking behaviour is to be regarded as a devious attempt by the Kremlin to

assert its authority and extend its influence to Latin America. It would seem that Latin America is

a place for Western companies to exploit and Russia has no business interfering. This does not

constitute an attempt to say that should Russia become the world’s dominant power the world’s

problems would suddenly disappear, but an attempt to uncover the hypocrisy and double

standards at play in the reporting of Gazprom’s overseas interests. This hypocrisy implies that

Western hegemony is decent and admirable; the prospect of Russian hegemony should be a

cause for alarm. It is reminiscent of the US’s Monroe Doctrine insofar as it casts Latin America

as a space which foreign powers compete to control, not a continent made up of sovereign

states.

A Sunday Times piece written by Irwin Stelzer of the Hudson Institute, a conservative

US think-tank, contextualizes Bolivia as a mere footnote in the post-Cold War rivalry, and casts

Russia as a threat to the West:

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Pay up or dance to the tune of foreign energy suppliers

[...] Venezuela, one of America's top crude-oil suppliers, had always been a reliable business partner, even honouring its contracts when the Arab members of Opec instituted their boycott. Now, the country is run by the rabidly anti-American, pro-Castro Hugo Chavez. He has raised taxes, sued for back-taxes (shades of Putin's assault on Yukos), forced international oil companies to give Venezuela's state-owned PDVSA majority ownership of their concessions, and forged an anti-Yankee alliance with other Latin-American oil producers such as Bolivia’s Evo Morales. All this is bad news for countries such as America and Britain where companies such as Exxon and BP operate within the constraints of shareholder-imposed requirements to maximise profits. They are players in a game that is increasingly dominated by state-run entities pursuing aims that have nothing to do with simply maximising profits.

(Sunday Times 8 January 2006: Business 4)

The Sunday Times is suggesting here that to do business with the West, on the West’s

terms, is to be reliable and to merit praise. For a Latin American government to seek different

terms is evidence of subversion, and is dismissed as mere anti-American posturing.

Furthermore, efforts by the likes of BP to maximize profits so that the benefit accrues to

shareholders are drawn as natural and reasonable, whereas efforts by Latin Americans to

maximize profits so that the benefit accrues to the state are regarded as intolerable.

The Times also regards Bolivian attempts to do business with non-Western entities as a

cause for concern in the context of Russia’s ambitions. Bolivia is labelled an ‘enemy’ of the US

rather than a critic of the US, the latter term being more appropriate given that the country is not

and was not at war with the US:

[Venezuela and Russia] discussed a range of military deals and a $2 billion (£1.3 billion) line of credit for weapons purchases secured by Mr Chávez during a visit to Moscow in September. Russia was expected to extend those loans to Bolivia, another US enemy, whose President, Evo Morales, was due to fly into Caracas to see Mr Putin late yesterday.

(The Times 3 April 2010: 40)

China is regarded with similar suspicion, as the Daily Telegraph demonstrates:

Chinese firms are snapping up Africa’s oil and mineral reserves, with deals in Angola, Gabon, Chad, Nigeria and Sudan. “They’re everywhere, and they’re really going for it,” said Catriona O’Rourke, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie. More than 78,000 Chinese contractors are now spread across Africa [...] Chinese oil companies have also signed deals with Venezuela’s firebrand leader Hugo Chavez and are courting the radical new president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, a virulent anti-American with plans to nationalise the country’s oil and gas reserves.

(Daily Telegraph 10 January 2006)

Here, the Daily Telegraph clearly projects British concerns about the decline of the West and

energy security onto its representation of Morales. The reference to Morales says little of

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substance about him, and only serves to equate criticism of US foreign and anti-narcotics policy

with xenophobia. The Sunday Telegraph also projects concerns about the increasing power of

China onto its representations of Bolivia. In another echo of the Monroe Doctrine, Bolivia is not

regarded as especially important per se, but as a potential ally for China there is some cause for

concern:

Beijing's newly cultivated energy alliances with populist Left-wing leaders in Latin America, traditionally regarded as the US backyard, are causing alarm in Washington. Venezuela, which is America's fourth biggest oil supplier and is led by Hugo Chavez, the anti-US authoritarian, sold only 12,300 barrels a day to China in 2004 but that figure will soar under new deals. Beijing is also expanding operations in Bolivia, where Mr Chavez's ally, Evo Morales, became president last year, and Peru.

(Sunday Telegraph 23 April 2006)

In a rather alarmist article, the Economist projects concerns about Hugo Chávez and his

influence on the rest of Latin America onto a discussion of the 2005 protests in Bolivia over gas

exports and the regional differences highlighted by the protests:

Pressure builds again in Bolivia Unless compromise is struck over gas, the constitution and regional autonomy, South America's most troubled democracy risks becoming a failed state [...] [...] Santa Cruz [...] is a centre of commercial farming, and the local headquarters for multinationals pumping natural gas out of the country [...] radical groups from Bolivia's western highlands [...] have blocked roads in order to force foreign investors to bow to their demands or leave. To inoculate itself against such disruption, Santa Cruz wants to gain autonomy from the central government in La Paz. Bolivia's tensions stir wider worries. If regionalism becomes separatism, other Andean countries could fray. With Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's authoritarian president, fomenting anti-American revolution across much of Latin America, Bolivia could be “the first domino” to fall, claimed The Wall Street Journal this month. Long the third-biggest producer of cocaine, if the country's shaky government loses authority, Bolivia, to some, risks becoming an ungovernable narco-state.

(Economist 23 April 2005)

It is interesting that the Economist links concerns regarding Bolivia’s gas to concerns over

Bolivia’s cocaine, and highlights the fact that, like hydrocarbons, coca is effectively a resource,

albeit a renewable resource, the production and sale of which the US and European powers

have sought to control according to their own domestic demands and needs.

The Financial Times is far more inclined than the other UK newspapers to present

energy as a largely regional (i.e. Latin American) matter, as it is in the Bolivian press. Though

this is possibly simply a function of the sheer number of articles found in that paper, which

allows for a greater depth of coverage and the assumption that regular readers will accumulate

a degree of familiarity with the topic, it does suggest that the Financial Times is a little more

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tuned into Bolivia’s domestic discussions about energy. In turn, that may be connected to the

Financial Times’ role at the forefront of the capitalist vanguard, a point which will be developed

below. The paper’s coverage includes several stories related to several 2006 meetings between

Morales, Chávez, Lula, and Néstor Kirchner about Bolivia’s supply of gas to Argentina and

Brazil:

A regional summit called to defuse tension over Bolivia's plans to nationalise its natural gas industry ended in uncertainty on Thursday when the four leaders present failed to reach agreement on proposed price increases and instead announced the expansion of plans to build a controversial gas pipeline from Venezuela to Argentina

(Financial Times 4 May 2006)

That is not to say, however, that by paying more attention to the regional aspects of

Bolivia energy policy the Financial Times coverage of Bolivian hydrocarbons does not reflect

contemporaneous British concerns, as a whole article dedicated to an opinion expressed by

Hugo Chávez demonstrates:

Chavez warns on oil production cuts Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's radical president, said on Sunday he expected Iran would cut oil production if attacked by the US in the dispute over nuclear technology, adding: "We would do the same if we were attacked. We would cut off our oil." "If the United States attacks Iran..?. Oil could reach $100 a barrel or more. The English middle classes would have to stop using their cars," [...] [The British Foreign Office minister responsible for Latin America] Lord Triesman added that while decisions taken by leaders such as Mr Chavez and Evo Morales of Bolivia reflected significant public opinion among those who had not benefited from natural resources or economic growth particularly indigenous peoples they also needed to be aware of the effect on investors.

(Financial Times 14 May 2006)

It would seem that the remarks made by Chávez have engendered fear about the future of

Venezuelan oil supplies, and the later reference to Morales suggests that the so-called

nationalization is regarded as evidence that he would also be willing to cut off energy supplies.

In addition, there are a number of articles examining the impact of the MAS’s energy

policies upon Brazil:

The summit of more than 50 Latin American, Caribbean and European leaders last week was hardly Brazil's finest hour. Where once the South American giant - with the region's biggest population and economy - would dominate such events, this time it found itself reacting to an agenda set by Bolivia, the continent's poorest state [...] Bolivia's nationalisation of its hydrocarbons sector on May 1 has embarrassed Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil's president, more than perhaps any other world leader. It has also raised questions over the direction of policy in Brazil, both domestically and abroad [...]

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What causes concern among many investors in Brazil is that, as demonstrated by the spat with Bolivia, Brazil's embrace of pragmatism and orthodoxy may owe more to expediency than conviction.

(Financial Times 15 May 2006: 10)

The focus on Brazil, and particularly the remark about pragmatism and orthodoxy, reflects

concern about the rise of the BRIC economies. The concerns over Russia and China, as

discussed above, demonstrate that the relationship between those two countries and the West

is problematic, and Brazil under Lula was often seen as a more pliant administration that could

be relied upon by the West. Effectively, the coverage of the impact of Bolivian policy on Brazil is

about neither Bolivia nor Brazil, but is instead about the solidity of Western dominance.

Furthermore, the Financial Times also contextualizes the MAS’s hydrocarbons policy in

global terms, again reflecting UK concerns about energy security and prices:

Oil wrestling: how nationalist politics has muscled back into world energy Thirty years on, the price of oil is soaring again and oil-rich countries are following the same route of aggressive nationalism that led the father of Opec to disown his creation. In the latest manifestation, Bolivia last Sunday nationalised its energy industry, sending in the army to seize gas fields and threatening to expel international oil companies in 180 days if they did not agree to new - and far less favourable - contracts.


and

Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, has warned that the increasingly nationalistic position of oil-rich countries and their redrawing of contracts is a new reality that international energy companies have to accept [...] Bolivia has become the latest country to change the rules, taking full control of its gas fields from companies including Petrobras of Brazil, Repsol of Spain, and the UK's BG. Last week, President Evo Morales said the government would not pay compensation for the confiscated fields.


Even those articles which deal with Bolivia more directly still often ignore the country,

especially in the case of articles about the decree. In several cases, the focus is upon the

effects the decree will have on foreign energy companies rather than the effects on Bolivia itself.

In an article that disingenuously refers to the ‘Latin American power provider Rurelec’ (Rurelec

is a London-based company with mainly British board members that operates in Bolivia and

Argentina), the Daily Express virtually ignores the impact the MAS’s energy policies have on

Bolivia, instead focusing on the effect it has on the British company:

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Rurelec claiming GBP46m from Bolivia Latin American power provider Rurelec will haul the Bolivian government through the international courts if it does not recoup at least GBP46million following a gunpoint nationalisation of its assets [...] [Chief executive Peter Earl] said that Rurelec might be asked to reinvest some of the money to forge a partnership with the Bolivians. If that did not happen, Rurelec would look to invest in countries such as Chile and Peru.

(Daily Express 10 May 2010)

The Sunday Telegraph and the Independent also appear to be more concerned about

the effect upon Rurelec, though the former does at least make it clear that Rurelec is British:

Bolivia seizes Rurelec assets PRESIDENT Evo Morales has seized the Bolivian assets of UK-listed British Rurelec, the largest power provider in the South American country. A statement from Rurelec said its controlling stake in Bolivian power company Empresa Electrica Guaracachi was nationalised yesterday along with the two other privatised power-generation companies in the country as part of Bolivia's May Day programme [...] The company's statement said the move was taken in the face of assurances given to the British and French ambassadors at the end of last week that the Morales administration continued to want to maintain European private investment in the power sector.


and

Rurelec focuses on 'fair value' after nationalisation

[...] those that skipped [the political risk] section in the [investment analyst's report] on Rurelec, which is listed on the Alternative Investment Market (Aim), may well now be kicking themselves. The Latin American-based power plant developer and operator lost 46.6 per cent of its value last week after Bolivia nationalised Empresa Guaracachi, a company in which Rurelec had a majority stake, transferring the assets to the state-owned ENDE. It is not all bad news, however [...] Mr Morales will pay fair value for the assets, giving Rurelec about £70m in cash, according to sources close to the company. The sum more than doubles the group's market capitalisation.

(Independent 10 May 2010: 32)

The reference to ‘bad news’ in the Independent makes it abundantly clear that the question of

whether the transfer of assets from Rurelec to the Bolivian state is a positive measure for Bolivia

is of little interest to the UK press. The news is regarded as simply bad for British capital and

that appears to be all the readers need to know. Similarly, the Independent on Sunday gives

primacy to the effect the decree will have upon international capital:

Repsol’s South American travails never end. Shares in the Spanish oil and gas giant dropped 2 per cent to close at €23.21 last week after President Evo Morales nationalised all of Bolivia’s gas and oil reserves. That was particularly painful for Repsol, as the nation is home to nearly a fifth of its natural gas reserves. Repsol wasn’t the only Western group to have its assets nabbed. Brazil’s Petrobras, BG and Total were among others affected. But Repsol, which has sunk more than $1bn (£537m) into the country over the past decade, has had problems in South America before.

(Independent on Sunday 7 May 2006: 12)

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The Independent later mentions that Bolivia is Latin America’s poorest country, and that

Morales is its first indigenous president, but priority is clearly given to the impact upon Western

capital rather than Bolivia. The Guardian goes so far as to characterize Bolivia’s policy as a

threat to international commerce: ‘Protectionism can threaten the world's trading system and

unnerve investors, and Venezuela and Bolivia have become more protectionist. Earlier this

month Evo Morales, Bolivia's president, took a big step towards nationalising his country's gas

and oil industries’ (Guardian 20 May 2006).


Despite the fact that the coverage of Bolivian energy reflects British rather than Bolivian

concerns, Bolivian voices are not ignored by the UK press. Table 4.4a illustrates the identity and

frequency of sources cited and/or quoted by the British press in energy related articles over the

period 2003-2010. As noted earlier, articles that are focused on countries other than Bolivia or

global energy in general are excluded from these figures.

TABLE 4.4A: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH ENERGY RELATED ARTICLES

All papers Total

DD DD(S) ID UNSIG

Bolivian state 56 50 63 0 169

Bolivian energy sector 11 3 10 0 24



European/US capital 5 2 4 0 11

International energy sector 44 37 61 3 145

European/US state 4 8 5 0 17

Other Latin American state 15 14 22 0 51

Other 7 12 3 1 23

Total 191 143 227 4 565

Since the aim of the analysis of discourse representation in this section is to determine

the extent to which non-Bolivian voices, rather than certain ideological viewpoints, occupy a

privileged space, no demarcation has been made between Bolivian discourse that is critical of

state policy and discourse that is favourable toward state policy. Consequently, both the state

energy company YPFB and the Cámara Boliviana de Hidrocarburos y Energía, an advocacy

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body for private energy companies, have been included under the Bolivian energy sector

category. However, statements made by companies such as Andina, a Bolivian subsidiary of

the Spanish energy group Repsol, have been included in the International energy sector

category, since effectively Andina serve the interests of a foreign energy corporation. The

figures show that out of a total of 565 instances of discourse representation, 247, or 43.72 per

cent, are Bolivian discourse. This suggests that the contemporary UK press is reasonably

balanced in terms of sources of information and providing space and a voice for all interested

parties. Boundary maintenance is reasonably uniform across all nine categories. However, of

the three most frequently cited sources, a larger proportion of European/US consultancies and

international energy discourse than Bolivian state discourse is ID – at 54.93 per cent, 42.07 per

cent, and 37.28 per cent respectively – suggesting that the UK press is more likely to

incorporate the discourse of international energy companies and European and US-based

consultancies and think tanks than the Bolivian state. It is worth noting that consultancies and

think tanks are the only source with more than fifty per cent of discourse rendered as ID. On the

surface, such bodies are a third party disinterested source of information and may appear

unbiased and neutral, and this is undoubtedly the reason for their frequent appearance.

However, consultancies and think tanks are frequently funded by large international energy

firms and as such their neutrality is nothing more than a veneer. The presence of such bodies

not only normalizes their underlying ideologies but, more importantly for this section, by dint of

their ostensible neutrality and depth of analysis privileges non-Bolivian perspectives by

rendering them reasonable and measured. Overall however, boundary maintenance levels do

not reveal a particular automatic bias. As noted above, the willingness of the UK press to quote

Bolivian sources contrasts with historical patterns of representation in which the local population

was rendered either invisible or mute. It is difficult to account for the exact reasons behind the

increased willingness to give a voice to Bolivians, though one could assume that the decline of

outright racism has played its part.

Development rhetoric

Despite the reasonably even-handed discourse representation, some other aspects of

the UK press’s treatment of Bolivian energy reproduce historical patterns of representation.

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There exists a sense of European superiority within the UK press’s representations of Bolivia,

and the modern equivalent of the civilizing mission – the rhetoric of development – is particularly

prominent. For example, The Times, clearly critical of the decree, evokes assumptions of

superiority and the rhetoric of development. It couches its advocacy of foreign profiteering in

terms of concern for Bolivia, ignoring the fact that historically such profiteering has done little to

reduce Bolivia’s extreme poverty levels or improve its infrastructure. This is not to state that

nationalization, or the decree, is the cure for all of Bolivia’s ills – on the contrary, it is simply a

slight realignment of power within an industry that has little real impact on the populace – but it

does reveal the persistence of the assumption that what is right for Europe is right for Latin

America, as the European experience is universal, and indeed natural.

Furthermore, this is justified with a casual claim that that old Latin American trope, the

military coup, is on the horizon. It is a hysterical pronouncement with no grounding in reality.

There has been no indication that the military would seize power from the Morales

administration. In fact, Morales has been quite careful in his dealings with the armed forces and

the police, and maintains a good relationship with both. That of course raises questions about

military and police accountability, but in any case The Times’ claim that there was a risk of a

military coup is simply nonsensical:

Outdated petulance - Bolivia's leader sends in the troops and sends away investors Sending in troops in riot gear and armed with sub-machineguns to guard Bolivia's oil and gas installations is a gesture as childish as it eye-catching [...] Some Bolivians may cheer this petulant display of nationalism; most will find that all Senor Morales has done is to anger his neighbours, undermine foreign confidence, cripple a vital industry and set back Bolivia's development by ten years or so […] Other left-wing Latin American leaders have also felt the pressure to spread national income more evenly; few have been as reckless […] Who will now sign long-term supply deals with such a capricious leader? Using troops is an outdated response to economic challenges. The danger is that this will eventually lead to another outdated response: the military coup.

(The Times 3 May 2006: 17)

Though it could be argued that Morales’s choice to surround himself with military

personnel means that The Times’ reference to a military coup is justified, the link is nevertheless

odd. A military coup generally tends to be the result of dissatisfaction with the sitting president

or government. Morales’s appearance with military personnel did nothing to suggest that the

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military were dissatisfied with the MAS administration, so The Times’ claim that there was a risk

of a coup is a big leap unsupported by evidence.

The Independent echoes The Times with the assertion that FDI in hydrocarbons is the

key to eliminating poverty in Bolivia:

Bolivian President sends in army to seize control of energy industry The dramatic Labour Day decision by the Bolivian President Evo Morales to nationalise the energy industry has alarmed the Brazilian and Spanish governments and could scare off the very investment and expertise Bolivia needs to turn its vast natural resources into wealth for its poor […]


Both the Independent and The Times fail to recognise that Bolivia’s ‘vast natural

resources’ have been exploited for centuries, with little benefit accruing to the majority of its

people. In particular, the arrogance behind The Times remark about setting development back

by ten years is breathtaking. The underlying assumption of that remark is that the neoliberal

policies in place over the preceding ten years were good for Bolivia. While headline

macroeconomic indicators such as GDP improved dramatically, FDI, as discussed earlier, has

had little effect on employment and done little to reduce inequality. To claim that FDI was

uniformly good for Bolivia is to speak from the point of view of international capital and to ignore

the legitimate grievances of huge swathes of the population.

The Daily Express carries a warning which subtly endorses the power of the West over

weaker nations: ‘Chief executive Peter Earl is hopeful that the Bolivians will pay up because

they have met their obligations in the past and face dire consequences, such as pulling the plug

on loans, if they don’t’ (Daily Express 10 May 2010), while a patronising editorial in the

Guardian admonishes Morales, and reinforces the idea that an export-led extractive industry is

the key to ending poverty in Bolivia:

Bolivia, landlocked as well as desperately poor, must avoid endangering exports, especially through Brazil, whose state-owned corporation Petrobras is the biggest single investor in Bolivian energy […] Economic nationalists, even those elected by what Mr Morales has called “the most disdained and discriminated against”, have to think through the consequences of their actions.

(Guardian 3 May 2006)

This development rhetoric and assumption of European superiority is also evident in

those articles that discuss energy in a global context:

Putin keeps prices to favoured allies below market levels; Chavez makes cheap oil available to Cuba; Middle Eastern countries, except possibly Kuwait, refuse

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to let western oil companies invest capital and expertise to develop new reserves even though the host countries would benefit.

(Sunday Times 8 January 2006: Business 4)

This suggests that non-western governments cannot know what is best for their country, while

western oil companies are altruistic entities capable of turning poor countries into rich ones.

The Sunday Telegraph features the Rurelec chief executive’s claim that Bolivia’s strong

growth in 2009 is thanks to his company: ‘“We are the largest power company in Bolivia and

managed to keep free of power cuts for the last year. As a result Bolivia has had the largest

GDP growth of all countries in North and South America.”’ (Sunday Telegraph 2 May 2010).

The Economist, an explicitly pro-free market newspaper, contains few surprises. It takes

for granted the notion that exporting natural resources is key to Bolivia’s development, and

displays, if not a sense of European superiority, then certainly of European entitlement:

Bolivia holds Latin America’s second-largest reserves of natural gas. If it does not sell some abroad, it cannot grow […] This will merely unsettle the oil companies, who are already concerned that $2.5 billion invested in Bolivian gas deposits may remain buried forever.

(Economist 13 September 2003)

Other papers, especially the Financial Times, tend to emphasize the role of foreign

companies in ‘developing’ the hydrocarbons industry rather than the country as a whole. While

this is less problematic than suggesting only western capital can develop the country, it still

carries with it overtones of European superiority: ‘International firms including Britain’s BG,

Repsol and Petrobras have invested more than $5 billion (£2.6 billion) developing Bolivia’s

natural gas sector’ (The Times 29 August 2006: 41), ‘The biggest loser [through the decree],

therefore, is Bolivia itself. Foreign capital and expertise has underpinned a seven-fold increase

in the country’s gas reserves since 1997’ (Financial Times 3 May 2006: 18), ‘YPFB lacks the

resources to manage the assets it has seized. And the government’s heavy-handedness is

raising questions about the damage it will do to Bolivia’s broader interests’ (Financial Times 17

September 2006), and ‘Bolivia has been unable to develop its resources at a rate needed […]

nationalisation seems to be hobbling long-term development of Bolivia’s most strategic

resources’ (Financial Times 7 March 2008: 8).

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The contemporary capitalist vanguard

The main way in which contemporary UK press coverage of Bolivian energy reproduces

old patterns of representation is its tendency to act as the capitalist vanguard, rendering Bolivia

a space that exists for the purpose of European exploitation and profit seeking, and keeping

investors informed of prospects for doing so. This excerpt from the Independent on Sunday is a

clear example:

Repsol’s South American travails never end. Shares in the Spanish oil and gas giant dropped 2 per cent to close at €23.21 last week after President Evo Morales nationalised all of Bolivia’s gas and oil reserves. That was particularly painful for Repsol, as the nation is home to nearly a fifth of its natural gas reserves. Repsol wasn’t the only Western group to have its assets nabbed. Brazil’s Petrobras, BG and Total were amongst others affected […] Bolivia, second only to Venezuela in terms of South America’s natural gas reserves, holds great potential for Repsol.

(Independent on Sunday 7 May 2006: 12)

Its sister paper the Independent is also part of the capitalist vanguard, helping its readers keep

up to date with share values, as in this excerpt that was quoted earlier in this chapter:

[...] those that skipped [the political risk] section in the [investment analyst's report] on Rurelec, which is listed on the Alternative Investment Market (Aim), may well now be kicking themselves. The Latin American-based power plant developer and operator lost 46.6 per cent of its value last week after Bolivia nationalised Empresa Guaracachi, a company in which Rurelec had a majority stake, transferring the assets to the state-owned ENDE.


The Observer keeps readers informed about British investments: ‘BG Group is close to

resolving its difference with Bolivia five months after the Latin American state announced it was

renationalising its gas and oil industries’ (Observer 24 September 2006), as does The Times:

‘Investments made by leading British energy companies in Bolivia’s huge gas reserves are

under threat from a popular movement clamouring for nationalisation of the country’s

hydrocarbon resources’ (The Times 24 October 2004: 37); the Daily Express ‘Rurelec shares

crashed from 17p to 9p last week after Bolivia’s president Evo Morales ordered the

nationalization of the firms’ assets- alongside those of two other private power companies- on

May Day’ (Daily Express 10 May 2010); and the Guardian:

Shares in BG, spun out of the former state-owned British Gas, were down in early trading on the London stock exchange. Spanish oil group Repsol YPF, the most exposed of the western oil majors in Bolivia, lost 3% of its stock market value although other key firms such as BP and Total remained unscathed.

(Guardian 3 May 2006)

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The Sunday Telegraph makes its readers aware that investment in Bolivia may be risky:

President Evo Morales has seized the Bolivian assets of UK-listed British Rurelec […] The company’s statement said the move was taken in the face of assurances given to the British and French ambassadors at the end of last week that the Morales administration continued to want to maintain European private investment in the power sector.


The Daily Telegraph moves to assure its readers that the decree is not necessarily a

cause for alarm, though investors should be aware of some uncertainty in the market:

Buried within [Morales’s] talk of imposing 82 per cent taxes was the qualification that this would only apply to fields that last year extracted more than 100 million cubic feet of gas, which applies to just two concessions […] "None of our fields fall into that category,'' said Neil Burrows, spokesman for British Gas, another of the largest foreign investors in Bolivia. "However we are no clearer as to what the government wants to do and so future investment is on hold until the uncertainty is over.''

(Daily Telegraph 3 May 2006)

The Times offers a classic example of the role of the capitalist vanguard, informing

prospective investors of a potentially lucrative opportunity in alternative energy sources:

Not an ounce of [lithium] has yet left Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, but the great salt lake holds enough lithium, according to some projections, to give whoever gains access to it future dominion over batteries for electric cars, laptops and mobile phones.

(The Times 27 August 2010: 35)

Implicit in this seemingly benign piece of information is the idea that whoever makes money

from Bolivia’s lithium, it probably will not be Bolivia.

Though the Independent indicates that in BP are not in immediate danger, it makes

clear a climate of uncertainty that means investment in Bolivia’s energy sector may be risky.

BP has two joint ventures in Bolivia. Wendy Silcock, a spokeswoman for BP, said the company was a “very small player” in Bolivia. “It’s a small piece of our business and it’s too early for us to be able to comment,” she said. Foreign companies were already spooked by a 2005 hydrocarbons law that paved the way for nationalisation and jacked up taxes, and many had put investments in Bolivia on hold.


It is the Financial Times, however, that leads the capitalist vanguard. In the first of three

examples from that paper, one can see read about low expectations and uncertainty, as well as

share price movements. The downplaying of the importance of the Bolivian portion of BG

Group’s production and proven reserves would reassure investors and calm market sentiment,

though not completely.

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Details of exactly what will happen to these [foreign-operated energy assets] remain sketchy, but Repsol of Spain is an obvious potential loser. At least January's reserves writedown had already lowered expectations. Yesterday's 0.6 per cent fall in the share price reflects that […] For BG Group, Bolivia may represent only 3-4 per cent of current production and proved reserves, but it is potentially a significant element of the UK company's medium-term production growth prospects. That said, exactly how and when these reserves were to be developed was uncertain anyway. In fact, the shares rose yesterday, on the back of a new agreement to enter Oman. [Similar decisions elsewhere] could actually provide a short-term boost for oil companies such as OMV and Statoil, with their focus on "safe" European operations.


The second Financial Times article is another example of the provision of information

regarding the business outlook, though the quote about Bolivia having a bad reputation in the oil

industry reveals the power structures involved:

Morales faces obstacles on path to takeover of gas industry Oil companies say Bolivia's decree to take control of the gas fields is extremely broad - their decision on whether to remain in the country will depend on how it is interpreted. BG and BP of the UK, Repsol of Spain, Total of France and Petrobras of Brazil now have 180 days to renegotiate contracts [...] […] some companies were likely to leave, analysts said. "Bolivia already has a bad reputation among oil companies and some of them are now going to leave the country," said Anouk Honore, natural gas analyst at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. "I see BG and BP walking out, and Total is 50 per cent likely to leave." BG and BP said they were still studying the Bolivian decree.


The final example is taken from a long article containing extremely detailed information

about the decree. It is typical of the Financial Times in that its articles tend to be fact-heavy and

dispassionate, since its primary purpose as a newspaper is to keep investors informed of

market activity, rather than to explain and interpret political events. Nevertheless, the

information is useful to those with or considering investments in any of the companies affected,

and the statement that ‘only two fields are affected’, while true, basically suggests that they

should not be overly concerned about the announcement.

LA PAZ INTENT ON REVERSING 'UNCONSTITUTIONAL' PRIVATISATION OF GAS SECTOR […] The policy gives the 21 foreign oil companies operating in Bolivia 180 days to hand over to YPFB, the state energy company, responsibility for determining all aspects of production and commercialisation of reserves, including output volumes and prices for internal and external markets. While new contracts are being drafted, fields that produce more than 100m cubic feet a day will pay 82 per cent of the value of production in taxes and royalties, retaining 18 per cent. In practice, only two fields are affected - San Alberto and San Antonio, both operated by Petrobras of Brazil […] Under Article 7 of the new policy, the state will buy enough shares to give it control of three former state companies privatised in 1996: Andina, controlled

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by Repsol of Spain; Chaco, part-owned by BP of the UK; and Transredes, a pipeline company controlled by Royal Dutch Shell, the Anglo-Dutch group.


Bolivia’s energy sources in the Bolivian press

The remainder of this chapter analyses the Bolivian press’s treatment of energy-related

matters. As Table 4.5 shows, this section of the corpus is made up of 149 articles, published by

the Bolivian press between 2003 and 2011, making this section of the corpus similar in size to

the corresponding British section. Like the UK energy-related articles, most of the Bolivian

energy-related articles collected for this study were published in 2006, though the temporal

distribution is slightly more even in the Bolivian press. While two-thirds of the UK energy-related

articles were published in 2006, a little under half, or 49.66 per cent, of Bolivian energy-related

articles were published in that year, indicating that for the UK press Bolivia’s energy resources

are rather more of a one-off matter than for the Bolivian press. Additionally, the Bolivian articles

are more evenly spread across newspapers than the UK articles, suggesting that energy is

regarded by the Bolivian press as being of interest to a general news audience, though of

course the Bolivian press lacks a specialist financial newspaper.

TABLE 4.5: ENERGY-RELATED ARTICLES IN THE BOLIVIAN PRESS BY NEWSPAPER AND YEAR

2003 2005 2006 2008 2009 2010 2011 TOTAL

Correo del Sur 3 11 2 6 4 26

Los Tiempos 2 18 8 5 3 36

El Diario 2 2 20 5 1 30

La Razón 2 16 1 8 1 28

El Deber 7 9 1 4 3 24

El Mundo 5

5

TOTAL 21 2 74 1 11 28 12 149

The discourse of ‘nationalization’

Despite such differences in the distribution of articles, like its British counterpart, the

Bolivian press reproduces the MAS’s portrayal of Decreto Supremo 28701 as a ‘nationalization’

of the hydrocarbons industry. This is achieved both through the extensive dissemination of the

discourse of the MAS, and through the use of the term ‘nacionalización’ or the verb

‘nacionalizar’ in primary discourse. As Table 4.6 demonstrates, in 104 articles there were 246

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uses of the term ‘nacionalización’ or the verb ‘nacionalizar’. 79.27 per cent of those 246

instances were made within primary discourse, demonstrating that the terms used by Morales

and the MAS to describe the decree were fully incorporated and disseminated by the Bolivian

press. It is interesting to note that Los Tiempos, the newspaper based closest to Morales’s core

electoral support, and La Razón, a paper often regarded as pro-government, have the highest

number of references to nationalization, with 72 and 64 total references respectively. In

contrast, El Diario, widely considered to be Bolivia’s most conservative daily newspaper, has

the lowest number of references, with 30 instances within 16 relevant articles. While this is not

as low a ratio of references to articles as in the case of the Daily Telegraph, in which the ratio

was lower than one reference per article, it is interesting to note that in both Bolivia and the UK

the newspapers whose readers would be least likely to support the MAS appear to be the most

resistant to MAS discourse.

TABLE 4.6: REFERENCES TO NATIONALISATION IN BOLIVIAN ENERGY-RELATED ARTICLES BY

NEWSPAPER, YEAR, AND DISCOURSE TYPE

References to nationalization

Number of relevant articles

8 Primary discourse Secondary discourse Total

Correo del 2006 9 23 4 27

Sur 2009 2 6 1 7

2010 8 1 1 2

2011 2 4 0 4

Los 2006 12 32 20 52

Tiempos 2009 8 15 0 15

2010 5 1 0 1

2011 3 3 1 4

El Diario 2006 10 22 8 30

2010 5 0 0 0

2011 1 0 0 0

La Razón 2006 16 49 14 63

2009 1 1 0 1

2010 8 0 0 0

2011 1 0 0 0

El Deber 2006 8 34 2 36

2008 1 0 0 0

2010 1 0 0 0

2011 3 4 0 4

Total 104 195 51 246

8 Since the so-called nationalization took place on 1 May 2006, Table 4.6 only includes articles published on or after that

date.

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The immediate reporting of the decree repeats the MAS’s claims that it constitutes a

nationalization: ‘El presidente boliviano Evo Morales aprobó ayer por decreto la tercera

"nacionalización de los hidrocarburos" de los últimos 70 años’ (Los Tiempos 2 May 2006: A4)

and ‘[…] el portavoz de la Presidencia Alex Contreras indicó que Morales “intercambiará

algunos criterios sobre lo que significa la nacionalización” con sus colegas de Argentina y Brasil

[…]’ (Los Tiempos 4 May 2006: 14). The term is quickly incorporated into the reporting

discourse: ‘El presidente Evo Morales sorprendió ayer con la firma del decreto supremo 28701

que nacionaliza y da al Estado el “control absoluto” de todos los hidrocarburos’ (Correo del Sur

2 May 2006: 8), and ‘Poco antes, el Jefe de Estado había presentado el Decreto Supremo

28701 que nacionaliza los hidrocarburos’ (Los Tiempos 2 May 2006: A4).

The repetition of the term nationalization is understandable in the early reporting of the

announcement, as deadlines would mean copy had to be submitted too quickly to allow a

thorough analysis of the decree. However, the Bolivian press continued to characterize the

decree as a nationalization long after the announcement: ‘Sin embargo, el plan [para exportar a

Argentina] podría verse frenado por los efectos de la nacionalización del sector petrolero

dictada el 1 de mayo pasado por Morales sobre las empresas interesadas en el negocio, como

la hispano-argentina Repsol YPF’ (Los Tiempos 26 June 2006: A8), and ‘[El gobernador de

Santa Cruz, Rubén] Costas pide que el Gobierno evite transferir al pueblo el costo del avión

presidencial, de los armamentos, el satélite y la ineficiencia de la nacionalizada YPFB’ (El

Deber 28 December 2010: Especial gasolinazo 11).

One way in which the Bolivian press’s treatment of the decree, and indeed the topic of

energy as a whole, differs from that of the British press is that there is less editorialising or

interpretation contained within news items. Generally, the Bolivian articles are straightforward

news items which are largely made up of discourse representation and descriptive accounts of

meetings and announcements, as in the following example from 2003:

El líder cocalero Evo Morales se reunió con legisladores chilenos para hablar sobre el gas y las relaciones bilaterales en Ginebra, en el marco de la Conferencia Mundial de la Unión Interparlamentaria (UIP), según informa la edición digital de El Mercurio, uno de los diarios con más influencia en el vecino país […] En cuanto el polémico tema del gas, los parlamentarios chilenos entrevistados por El Mercurio afirman que Evo no puso ninguna condición sobre la mesa y que no se refirió a la salida del mar, ni tampoco a otro tipo de compensaciones, actitud que los diputados chilenos observaron con atención porque identifican

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al dirigente cocalero como el abanderado de la campaña contra la exportación del gas por puertos chilenos.

(Correo del Sur 5 October 2003: 4)

The use of the term ‘polémico’ in the above extract is typical of the extent of the editorialising

found within the Bolivian energy-related articles, though it is barely editorialising at all. The

Bolivian press is quick to point out that the decree has ruffled the feathers of transnational

corporations and some foreign governments, yet there is little outright condemnation, or indeed

praise for, the announcement:

Las principales autoridades de los países [de Brasil y España] comparten el sentimiento de conmoción que ha provocado el decreto de Morales en la brasileña Petrobras y en la española Repsol […] La decisión, que se apoya en el mandato popular del referéndum vinculante del 18 de julio de 2004, establece que a partir de ayer del Estado recupera la propiedad, posesión y el control total y absoluto de los recursos petroleros.

(El Deber 2 May 2006: A3)

and

Las petroleras se inquietan, pero se quedarán a negociar Repsol-YPF dice que defenderá sus activos y las fuentes de empleo. Petrobras se quedará, pero se reserva tomar acciones. La Cámara de Hidrocarburos califica de unilateral el decreto de nacionalización […] Mientras la Comunidad Europea como Estados Unidos expresaron su preocupación por el efecto que la medida tendrá para la seguridad de las inversiones extranjeras, los gobiernos de Brasil y España —principales socios de Bolivia en los negocios de explotación de gas— convocaron a reuniones de urgencia para analizar la medida y tomar medidas de contingencia ante eventuales perjuicios para sus intereses.

(La Razón 3 May 2006: 1 and C2)

Of course, the UK press – particularly the non-financial papers – must include some

expositional detail for British readers to an extent that the Bolivian press does not.

Nevertheless, contextual information could be provided without the editorialising, references to

military coups, or ‘blasts from the past’ described in the previous section.


As noted above, much of the Bolivian energy-related articles are made up of discourse

representation. The extent to which discourse representation dominates this section of the

corpus can be seen in Table 4.7a, which illustrates the identity and frequency of sources cited

and/or quoted. As was the case with respect to the discourse analysis of the British energy-

related articles, no demarcation has been made between Bolivian discourse that is critical of

state policy and discourse that is favourable toward state policy. Instances of discourse

representation amounts to 1643, almost three times the number of instances in the British

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energy-related articles. Of this total, 1302, or 79.25 per cent, are the discourse of Bolivian

actors. Furthermore, 923 instances, or 56.18 per cent of the total, are Bolivian state discourse.

In sharp contrast to the UK press, European/US consultancies and European/US capital barely

feature, with just one instance of discourse representation between the two within all 149

articles. Though it is not obvious from the table, the Bolivian press does occasionally quote or

cite Bolivian equivalents – generally referred to as ‘analistas’ – which have been included in the

Bolivian Other category. Nevertheless, for the most part the Bolivian Other category is made of

up the discourse of opposition politicians and the general public, and such analysts make up

just a handful of the occurrences of discourse representation. Therefore, the data show that the

Bolivian press does not cite or quote consultancies or think tanks to the extent the British press

does. In addition, International Energy discourse also features markedly less often than in the

UK press at 80 instances, or 4.87 per cent of the total, and European/US state discourse occurs

on just 50 occasions, making up 3.04 per cent of discourse representation. In contrast, Latin

American State discourse features 210 times, constituting 12.78 per cent of discourse

representation. Of the three most frequently cited sources, boundary maintenance is highest

with respect to Latin American State discourse, with just 44.29 per cent being rendered as ID, in

contrast to Bolivian State discourse and Bolivian Other discourse at 50.38 per cent and 58.05

per cent respectively – confirming that the Bolivian press is more likely to absorb and

disseminate the discourse of Bolivian actors than non-Bolivians.

These discourse representation figures, combined with the lack of extensive

editorializing, make the overall effect of the Bolivian energy-related articles very different to the

British equivalent. On the one hand, the UK press is more prone to actively shaping public

opinion, yet is more balanced in terms of sources of information; on the other, the Bolivian press

takes what at first glance appears to be a more neutral approach, yet in doing so allows a

handful of voices, particularly that of the Bolivian state, to dominate its reporting of energy-

related matters. The dominance of Bolivian state discourse – and, though it is not made explicit

in Table 4.7a, the discourse of Evo Morales as a subset of Bolivian state discourse – in the

reporting of energy-related matters highlights the extent to which Bolivia’s national conversation

is a manifestation of the colonial wound, as questions of resources and sovereignty are at the

core of economic policy.

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TABLE 4.7A: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BOLIVIAN ENERGY RELATED ARTICLES

All papers Total

DD DD(S) ID UNSIG









Total 311 472 856 4 1643

The framing of energy

Another way in which the Bolivian coverage of energy matters differs from the British

coverage is the contextualization of the subject. As discussed earlier, the British press placed

Bolivian energy in the context of global energy matters. In contrast, as Table 4.8 shows, the

Bolivian press treats it as a chiefly domestic matter, and to a lesser extent as a regional (i.e.,

Latin American) matter. 55.03 per cent of articles frame the topic as a domestic matter, 31.54

per cent as a regional matter, and just 13.42 per cent as a global matter. To an extent this

difference in framing supports the maxim that all news is local – in other words that even when

reporting world news, news media tends to report on matters that have implications for local

audiences, or can be framed as issues that have parallels with those that are important to local

audiences. While the UK coverage of Bolivian energy matters reflects local concerns regarding

energy security, the decline of the West, and the emergence of the BRIC economies, the

Bolivian coverage reflects local concerns regarding the economy, democracy and stability, and

access to and ownership of resources.

TABLE 4.8: FRAMING OF ENERGY MATTERS IN THE BOLIVIAN PRESS

Domestic matter Regional matter Global matter Total


2006 1 9 1 11

2009 1 1 0 2

2010 6 0 0 6

2011 4 0 0 4

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Domestic matter Regional matter Global matter Total


2006 4 10 4 18

2009 7 1 0 8

2010 5 0 0 5

2011 3 0 0 3

El Diario 2003 2 0 0 2

2005 2 0 0 2

2006 6 7 7 20

2010 5 0 0 5

2011 1 0 0 1

La Razón 2003 2 0 0 2

2006 3 10 3 16

2009 1 0 0 1

2010 8 0 0 8

2011 1 0 0 1

El Deber 2003 4 3 0 7

2006 1 3 5 9

2008 0 1 0 1

2010 4 0 0 4

2011 3 0 0 3

El Mundo 2003 5 0 0 5

Total 82 47 20 149

The 2003 Gas War is largely framed as a domestic matter and, chiefly through

discourse representation, is discussed in terms of democracy and stability. Correo del Sur (14

October 2003: 4) reports Sánchez de Lozada’s accusation that the protestors were ‘grupos

financiados por ONGs [que] quieren desestabilizar al país’, along with his reference to ‘la

existencia de un proyecto subversivo, organizado y financiado desde el exterior para destruir la

democracia en Bolivia’. Both pieces of quoted text are examples of ID, allowing Sánchez de

Lozada’s discourse to be fully incorporated into the reporting discourse. In contrast, the counter-

accusations of the then-opposition representative Morales are more explicitly marked as

secondary discourse: ‘[...] Evo Morales, calificó esa decisión como una defensa de las

transnacionales del gas y petróleo que obligan a las fuerzas militares y policías a “masacrar al

pueblo”’ and ‘“Llegó la hora de recuperar los hidrocarburos y llegó la hora de recuperar la

democracia a fin de acabar con la mafia política” aseguró el Morales’ (Correo del Sur 14

October 2003: 4), though some of Morales’s less accusatory statements are represented as ID.

The different modes of representation of official discourse and opposition discourse suggest

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that the paper regards the governing party’s statements on democracy as more legitimate than

those of the opposition. However, an earlier article in the same newspaper carries Morales’s

implicit accusations that the government is anti-democratic as ID: ‘[...] Evo Morales Ayma,

declaró en esta ciudad que el bloqueo de caminos […] fue un instrumento eficaz para la

reivindicación de muchos derechos así como para derrotar a los dictadores’.

Los Tiempos, in listing the social movements’ demands, makes it clear that the Gas

War centres not only on the ownership of Bolivia’s gas, but also the sale of it abroad:

Jaime Solares, secretario ejecutivo de la Central Obrera Boliviana (COB), y Felipe Quispe, ejecutivo de la Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia (CSUTCB), decidieron no dialogar con el Gobierno hasta que éste ordene la desmilitarización de la ciudad de El Alto, anule la Ley de Hidrocarburos y garantice de forma escrita la inexistencia de un proyecto de venta de gas a mercados estadounidenses, de lo contrario plantearon la renuncia del presidente de la República, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada.

(Los Tiempos 13 October 2003: A2)

This piece of represented discourse demonstrates that, for the social movements, as

noted earlier, the notion of ownership and use of natural resources cannot be separated. The

social movements’ position is, broadly speaking, that the people should own the gas. For some

groups, that also means that the gas should be exploited for domestic use, and be made

available to the Bolivian people at a low price. That is, Bolivia’s hydrocarbons should benefit the

people, not foreigners, be they large corporations or end consumers. This represents a break

with the notion that an export-oriented extractive economy is the key to Bolivia’s development,

and the representation of this discourse as ID by Los Tiempos adds legitimacy to this view. This

is reproduced by La Razón (7 October 2003: A8) in its outlining of Morales’s position: ‘Instruyó a

las federaciones cocaleros el bloqueo de la vía Cochabamba – Santa Cruz, en rechazo a la

exportación de gas’.

El Diario, on the other hand, while also framing the Guerra del Gas in terms of domestic

stability and democracy, suggests that it has repercussions outside Bolivia. Headlined ‘Hay

riesgo de guerra civil en Bolivia’ (El Diario 14 October 2003: Cuerpo I-6), an article in that paper

uses discourse representation to indicate that the matter is relevant to Chile as well as Bolivia:

Antes de discutir sobre el tema del gas, el líder de los cocaleros exigió “que se devuelva el mar a los bolivianos, porque esos puertos chilenos ni siquiera son de los chilenos, son de los empresarios privados, de las transnacionales”.

(El Diario 14 October 2003: Cuerpo I-6)

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The references to the violence of the Guerra del Gas by El Deber undermines the

legitimacy of the protestors. While the paper reproduces governmental accusations of sedition

against Evo Morales and Felipe Quispe a number of times, its references to the violence

perpetrated by the state are couched in terms that fail to identify those responsible. For

example, the paper carries such headlines as ‘Más muertos en El Alto; Goni teme golpe de

Estado’ (El Deber 12 October 2003: A1), and ‘Acusan a Evo de sedición y quieren su

desafuero’ (El Deber 12 October 2003: A23), as well as repeating the accusations in the main

text. The repetition of such accusations aids their credibilty, and combined with statements such

as ‘Ayer la jornada en El Alto dejó al menos tres muertos’ (El Deber 12 October 2003: A1), and

‘Al menos tres personas murieron – entre ellas un niño – y 15 resultaron heridas por

enfrentamientos entre fuerzas del Ejército y la Policía con manifestantes de la ciudad de El Alto’

(El Deber 12 October 2003: A23), which fail to explicitly identify the state as the perpetrator,

reinforce the suggestion that Evo Morales is responsible for the violence. Similarly, the same

paper’s report the following day refers to ‘[... el] conflicto entre el gobierno y los sectores

sociales de El Alto’ (El Deber 13 October 2003: A7), and the day after that, rather vaguely, to

‘[…] los hechos violentos […]’ and ‘[...] la violencia del último mes’ (El Deber 14 October 2003:

A11), without attributing the violence to any particular individual or group.

El Diario, on the other hand, gives much credence to the discourse of Evo Morales, and

his view that the Sánchez de Lozada government is repressive and anti-democratic. The

opening paragraph of an article that is almost completely comprised of excerpts from a Chilean

radio interview with Morales reads:

El diputado boliviano y líder del Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS), Evo Morales, afirmó a Radio Cooperativa de Santiago que hay posibilidades en su país de que se llegue a la guerra civil, debido a las medidas de represión adoptadas por el Gobierno de Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada.

(El Diario 14 October 2003: Cuerpo I – 6)

The reference to repression on the part of the Sánchez de Lozada government is delivered in

such a way that it minimizes the fact that it is contained within secondary discourse, suggesting

that for El Diario the repression is a matter of fact rather than a matter of Morales’s opinion. All

references to violence and anti-democratic conduct contained within the article refer to the

activities of the state rather than the opposition or social movements, albeit all within secondary

discourse. Though much of the rest of the article uses terms such as ‘acusó’ and ‘consideró’,

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and renders Morales’s description of the Sánchez de Lozada government as a dictatorship

DD(S), the opening paragraph is powerful enough to override any suggestion that Morales’s

comments may be overblown. Though it is worth pointing out that the report was filed from

Santiago de Chile by Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA), the German press agency which bases

its Latin American operations in Buenos Aires, and may not be a typical reflection of El Diario’s

editorial position, the difference between El Deber and El Diario’s reporting of the violence may

reflect the regional nature of Bolivia’s press. That is, since El Deber is based in Santa Cruz, at

the heart of the hydrocarbons industry, its reporting is governed by the industry perspective.

Meanwhile, El Diario, as a La Paz newspaper, is physically closer to El Alto and consequently

the state violence that took place there.

The gasolinazo of December 2010, a controversial government-mandated increase in

the price of fuel which led to civil protest and an eventual U-turn, is also framed as a domestic

matter. Unlike the Guerra del Gas, however, it is framed as an economic matter rather than one

relating to democracy and stability, with much of the information provided by the Bolivian press

relating to consumer prices and domestic reaction to the move. La Razón, using DD(S) to

distance itself from the government’s position, informs its readers that:

Después de seis años, el precio de los carburantes es reajustado con incrementos que van del 22 al 99%. Esta medida, según el Gobierno, busca “consolidar y garantizar el modelo de desarrollo productivo” implementado en el país desde enero del 2005.

(La Razón 27 December 2010: C2)

El Diario makes clear the negative reaction of the public and the social movements to

the gasolinazo decree:

El “gasolinazo”, aprobado por el Gobierno el fin de semana, empezó a provocar una espiral inflacionaria, que ya se refleja en una alza radical de precios de pasajes, alimentos y otros servicios, por lo que ciudadanos y dirigentes de distintos sectores y tendencias manifestaron que el presidente Evo Morales debería optar por abrogar el Decreto Supremo 748 para evitar un “daño traumático” a la economía de las familias más empobrecidas del país.

(El Diario 29 December 2010)9

The gasolinazo decree was, according to the Morales administration, an attempt to

discourage the smuggling of fuel purchased in Bolivia by those living in neighbouring countries,

where fuel prices were higher. While the government’s position is widely disseminated by the

9 The page number is unknown since the article was taken from El Diario’s website. Though the article is likely to have

appeared in the print edition, gaps in the holdings of the ABNB mean this cannot be verified for certain and page numbers cannot be obtained. Nevertheless, the online edition of each newspaper is illustrative of the reporting of each title.

227

Bolivian press, there is little discussion of the effect the decree would have in those countries,

and the gasolinazo continues to be framed as an exclusively domestic matter, as the following

excerpt shows:

El presidente Evo Morales convocó ayer a un debate para solucionar la crisis hidrocarburífera del país y para ello planteó la creación de una comisión nacional integrada por representantes de organizaciones sociales que elabore un proyecto para evitar las pérdidas por la subvención a los carburantes. También acusó a quienes él considera de derecha, específicamente al Movimiento Sin Miedo (MSM), de financiar a grupos para generar manifestaciones violentas […] Consultado sobre cómo se enfrentaría el contrabando de combustibles, dijo que se buscarían mecanismos para “ser más duros” con los contrabandistas que trafican sobre todo en las fronteras con Chile, Perú y Brasil, donde se llevan diesel o gasolina en termos, cajas de cerveza y hasta en mamaderas.

(Los Tiempos 2 January 2011: Economía)10

The exception to the framing of energy as a domestic matter is the coverage of the

Héroes del Chaco decree, which is contextualized primarily as a regional economic matter,

highlighting the power differentials within the continent. The reaction of Brazilian officials to the

decree is well-documented by the Bolivian press:

El presidente de Brasil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, expresó claramente su disconformidad ante su colega Evo Morales con la forma "abrupta" en que se condujo la nacionalización del gas y ante el mandatario Hugo Chávez por la presencia de técnicos petroleros venezolanos en Bolivia, reveló ayer el canciller Celso Amorím[…] Pero la disconformidad expresada la pasada semana en la reunión de los tres presidentes y su colega argentino Néstor Kirchner fue confinada a un nivel privado para evitar que Bolivia radicalizase posiciones.

(Los Tiempos 10 May 2006: 1)

and

REÚNE A CUATRO PRESIDENTES Cumbre del gas: Evo defiende la nacionalización

La medida enojó a Brasil, que ayer calificó de un error “estratégico” su dependencia del gas boliviano

Petrobras paralizó inversiones en el país y advirtió que rechazará cualquier alza del precio del gas

(Correo del Sur 4 May 2006: 1)

However, El Deber contextualizes the decree as a chiefly international matter, an

interesting difference in light of the fact that the newspaper is based in the city that is at the

heart of the hydrocarbons industry, and has the greatest links to transnational capital.

Decreto: Evo calma a Lula y Chávez a Zapatero […] España se enoja

10

The page number is unknown since the article was taken from the Los Tiempos website. Though the article is likely to have appeared in the print edition, gaps in the holdings of the ABNB mean this cannot be verified for certain and page numbers cannot be obtained. Nevertheless, the online edition of each newspaper is illustrative of the reporting of each title.

228

El Gobierno español citó al encargado de negocios de Bolivia. Hugo Chávez dice que tranquilizó a Zapatero

Reacción de la UE La Unión Europea reclama, Chile está preocupada y EEUU cauta frente a la medida de Evo Morales

Habrá diálogo Tras una fuerte protesta, Petrobras y Repsol decidieron seguir operando y dialogar con el Ejecutivo

(El Deber 3 May 2006: A1)

The capitalist vanguard

Some of the discursive features of the British coverage of Bolivian energy matters also

occur in the Bolivian coverage, albeit often to a lesser extent or with a number of important

differences. For example, the equation of industry with progress, something of an internalization

of the civilizing discourse, features on occasion. Prior to the election of the MAS in 2005, the

party’s belief that the extractive economy was the path to development was clear, and

disseminated largely unquestioned by the Bolivian press: ‘[Morales] Agregó que los bolivianos

no están opuestos a la venta del gas, simplemente pretenden obtener los mayores beneficios

para el desarrollo nacional, mediante la industrialización’ (El Deber 22 October 2003: A5). The

statement carries with it the tacit assumption that industry is equated with progress, and

assumes the universality of the Western model of modernity. This is reinforced by Los Tiempos

upon Morales’s election, albeit in a manner which marks the party’s discourse more explicitly:

‘“Queremos erradicar la pobreza y lograr la justicia social", dijo Morales, antes un dirigente

cocalero. Para ello, añadió, Bolivia debe nacionalizar sus reservas de petróleo y gas y

explotarlos en empresas conjuntas’ (Los Tiempos 6 January 2006: A3). Similarly, later remarks

by Carlos Villegas, the Minister for Planning, are reported by Los Tiempos, though explicitly

marked as reported discourse: ‘"Creo que tenemos el escenario favorable para poder

diversificar mercados, pero no solo pensando en la materia prima", afirmó. Villegas recordó que

la prioridad es destinar los volúmenes adicionales de gas natural a la industrialización’ (Los

Tiempos 2009).11

However, though the European model of development is assumed to be

universal and the benefits of the extractive model are unquestioned, the notion that FDI is

crucial to Bolivia’s extractive industries does not really occur within Bolivian coverage of energy-

related matters. In other words, the assumption of European superiority and the rhetoric of

development are virtually absent, though there are a handful of examples in which the

11

The page number is unknown since the article was taken from the Los Tiempos website.

229

importance of FDI to the Bolivian economy is highlighted: ‘En declaraciones a Erbol, el ex

superintendente de Hidrocarburos, Carlos Miranda, señaló que la nacionalización, con los

resultados actuales como el bajo nivel de inversiones y el incremento en la importación de

combustibles defraudó las expectativas de la población’ (El Deber 4 January 2011: A1).

Perhaps the most striking way in which the Bolivian press coverage of energy diverges

from the British coverage is the extent to which the press acts as the capitalist vanguard.

Initially, it appears that the Bolivian press do not play the role of the capitalist vanguard at all,

yet a closer reading demonstrated that it in fact does, although in a fashion that highlights the

differences between Bolivia and the UK in a global business context. That is, where the UK

press acts as the capitalist vanguard by providing information, such as share price movements,

that is useful to actors within the international capital markets, the Bolivian press tends to

provide information that relates to the everyday costs of doing business, such as fuel retail

prices. Given the nature of this difference it may be more appropriate to identify the role of the

Bolivian press as the petit bourgeois vanguard, rather than the capitalist vanguard. The

reporting of the gasolinazo in particular highlights this difference: ‘Tras la abrogación del

Decreto Supremo 748, los precios de los hidrocarburos vuelven a sus precios de hace una

semana: 3.74 bolivianos el litro de gasolina, 4.79 bolivianos la gasolina premium y 3.72 el

diesel’ (El Diario 1 January 2011), and:

Tras anular el gasolinazo, el presidente Evo Morales defendió la medida económica que lanzó y anunció que se debe preparar al país para un ajuste de precios de carburantes, porque el monto de la subvención se incrementa cada año y los bajos precios desincentivan la explotación de crudo.

(La Razón 2 January 2011: E2)

Of course, this distinction is not always clear-cut, and in some cases the information

provided by the Bolivian press would be of use to share-holders, for example a Correo del Sur

(14 January 2006: 1) prediction that Morales ‘[…] reestructurará YPFB en alianza con

Petrobras’ may serve as a warning that existing investments may be at risk, while Los Tiempos

records some share price movements prompted by the so-called nationalization:

La bolsa española superó ayer una sesión que comenzó mal a primera hora cuando se conoció la nacionalización de los hidrocarburos en Bolivia. Repsol, que llegó a caer un 3 por ciento, pero se recuperó al cierre, llegando al menos 1 por ciento.

230

El índice Ibovespa de la bolsa de Sao Paulo subió ayer al 1,62 por ciento y alcanzó un nuevo récord de puntos en una sesión en que las acciones de Petrobras ignoraron la arremetida boliviana.

(Los Tiempos 3 May 2006: B4)

Nevertheless, such examples are far less frequent than is the case in the British press, and the

difference between the two is an important indication of how each country’s press regards its

readers’ role in global finance and relationship with capital markets.

Conclusions

This chapter, by exploring the features of, and discourse representation within,

newspaper articles that relate to Bolivian energy resources in the British and Bolivian press, has

demonstrated that the patterns of representation of Latin America established in the nineteenth

century have been absorbed into modern media coverage, particularly in the UK. For the UK

press, Bolivia remains an insubstantial place that exists principally as a source of revenue and

the press has taken on the role of the capitalist vanguard that was previously occupied by early

travel writers. The Bolivian press appears to have internalized a number of these patterns,

particularly the idea of the country as a source of raw materials.

It is no mere coincidence that Bolivia is of most interest to the UK press when British

financial interests are at risk, yet the nature of modern capitalism and international news

coverage is such that both investors and journalists engage with Bolivia in an even less

meaningful sense than nineteenth-century Britons. In the context of concerns about energy

security, Bolivia becomes something of a lost world, as the country is subordinated to British

geopolitical anxieties. Moreover, the use of European and US-based analysts as ostensibly

neutral experts who can provide expository detail further privileges western perspectives.

Yet despite this, Bolivian voices are not absent from the British coverage, and the UK

press readily disseminates the MAS’s claims to have carried out a nationalization of the

hydrocarbons industry, despite the fact that the decree was not an especially radical move.

However, criticism of the decree within the UK press, couched in terms of concern for Bolivia, is

simply a contemporary manifestation of the civilizing mission as the rhetoric of development

equates privatization and FDI with progress. This development rhetoric is also indicative of the

logic of coloniality, insofar as it assumes the universality of the European model of modernity.

To an extent, the Bolivian press also reproduces the idea that the European model of modernity

231

is universal, since through discourse representation it incorporates unquestioned the MAS’s

position that the extractive industries are the key to Bolivia’s development.

232

Conclusions

This thesis sought to determine the degree to which contemporary British press

representations of Bolivia and Evo Morales reproduce historical patterns of British

representations of Latin America and Latin Americans. These historical patterns of

representation are to be found in travel writing and economic surveys of the 1800s and early

1900s, as well as works of literature set in, or ostensibly ‘about’, Latin America. Though the

primary focus of the thesis was the content of the British press, the thesis also sought to

determine the degree to which contemporary Bolivian press representations of Morales and the

MAS indicate that Bolivia’s Creole elite have internalized British and European perceptions of

Latin America and Latin Americans.

Chapter one, which provided an overview of historical patterns of representation of Latin

America in Britain in order to contextualize the contemporary press coverage, established that

there were a number of features common to the early representations which would provide a

framework for the remainder of the thesis. Particularly important to the analysis of the coverage

of Bolivian elections, the coca leaf, and energy were Mignolo’s logic of coloniality, rhetoric of

development, and colonial difference; Pratt’s capitalist vanguard and anti-conquest rhetoric; and

Foster’s theory that Latin America has been rendered a lost world within British representations.

Chapter two analysed the British and Bolivian press coverage of Bolivia’s general

elections in 2002, 2005, and 2009, and has revealed several disparities between the British and

Bolivian coverage, as well as differences from one election to the next. The chapter has

determined that while contemporary press coverage reproduced several aspects of the early

representations discussed in chapter one, there are some important differences, most notably in

the way that Bolivians are no longer rendered mute beneath the European gaze. Furthermore, it

also established that the extent to which the contemporary Bolivian press shows signs of having

internalized the European gaze is limited, though the coverage is not entirely unproblematic.

The biggest difference between the British and Bolivian press coverage of the elections was the

degree of attention paid to Morales’s ethnicity. Through extensive use of qualitative situationality

devices, the British press foregrounded his ethnicity much more than its Bolivian counterpart,

though the British press’s focus on ethnicity lessened over time. The difference recalled both

233

the Victorian desire for ostensibly scientific classification and the creation of a Bolivian, mestizo

identity which erased the experience of the indigenous. In addition, the British press depicted

Bolivians as irrational and emotional, drawing on stereotypes of Latin America as a wild, chaotic

place in need of the civilizing influence of Europe.

Chapter three analysed coverage of the coca leaf, and established that the

coca/cocaine distinction is undermined by the British press, which reproduced the logic of

coloniality by giving primacy to the European interpretation of coca. The MAS government’s

successful campaign for Bolivia to be exempt from the UN prohibition of the coca leaf appears

to have made little impact upon the British press’s view of coca, and thus the process of

transculturation is limited. In contrast, the Bolivian press clearly distinguishes coca from cocaine,

indicating that despite the fact that the Bolivian print media is led by a white elite, the Bolivian

press more readily contests the logic of coloniality than its British counterpart.

Chapter four established that Bolivia is of most interest to the UK press when British

financial interests are at risk and consequently, in the eyes of the UK press, Bolivia is little more

than a source of raw materials. That is, the press is the modern equivalent of the capitalist

vanguard that was previously occupied by early travel writers, yet this modern capitalist

vanguard engage with Bolivia in an even less meaningful sense than the nineteenth-century

counterpart. Moreover, British coverage of energy revealed a contemporary manifestation of the

civilizing mission: the rhetoric of development. Like coverage of coca, it also employed the logic

of coloniality, as the universality of the European model of modernity was taken for granted. The

Bolivian press also reproduced the assumption of the universality of the European model, taking

for granted that the extractive industries are the key to Bolivia’s development, having

internalized the idea of the country as a source of raw materials.

Via analyses of discourse representation it was demonstrated throughout the thesis that

Bolivians were not rendered silent or pliable as they were in historical representations, though

boundary maintenance exhibits some resistance among the British media to fully absorbing the

discourse of Bolivian actors. In contrast, analysis of discourse representation in the Bolivian

press suggests a narrowing of public discourse alongside the emergence of a new hegemonic

elite, and moreover to a large extent allowed Morales and the MAS to determine their own

public image.

234

Unlike the Bolivian press, the British press habitually portrayed Latin America as a

homogenous entity, reflecting notions of Latinidad as established in opposition to the Anglo

north. Moreover, the British press regularly rendered Bolivia a lost world, since coverage of

Bolivian elections and issues surrounding coca and energy was governed by US and UK

concerns and Bolivia was effectively rendered irrelevant. However, any focus on the US not

only disappeared Bolivia but also reproduced the anti-conquest rhetoric and the assertions of

colonial difference seen in early travel writing, obscured British soft power, and reflected

contemporary British concerns about the country’s role on the world stage. In contrast, the

Bolivian press rarely contextualized domestic matters as anything but domestic matters, making

little attempt to create any regional or global narratives.

The thesis has filled a gap in Latin American studies and media-related research by

offering a comprehensive evaluation of contemporary British representations of Bolivia. It was

noted in the introduction that the most extensive body of work on Latin America in the British

media relates to the coverage of the 1982 Falklands conflict – most of which were published

twenty-five to thirty years ago. The lack of recent research highlights the peripheral nature of

Latin America in the British media, while the fact that the only significant volume of work relates

to a military operation involving British forces is itself indicative of the validity of the notion of

Latin America as a blank canvas for the exploration British concerns. Thus this thesis

represents a contribution to a long-neglected area and, by examining contemporary

representations, supplements a field that has been dominated by the study of historical

examples. More importantly, by making evident the fact that those historical examples have

much in common with contemporary material, the thesis shows that despite Europe’s self-image

as a beacon of inexorable progress, British attitudes to Bolivia remain rooted in a set of cultural

assumptions from the nineteenth-century. Most damaging is the way in which such assumptions

promote the discourse of development and govern the economic relationship between the two

countries. While a somewhat blunt tool for analysis, the application of a discourse

representation framework enabled an objective and helpful analysis of the degree to which the

logic of coloniality endures. However, it shoud be remembered that the article selection criteria

may have created a selection bias that places limitations upon the conclusions that may be

235

drawn from the data, since it may have increased the proportion of quotes by Morales and his

supporters versus that of their opponents

Nevertheless, the approach taken in this thesis could be applied to a number of other

areas. Most obviously, it could be applied to the 2014 Bolivian election which was held as this

thesis was being finalised. The British television and newspaper coverage of the 2014 World

Cup in Brazil and/or the public protests that took place in the year leading up to the tournament

are particularly ripe for analysis and would provide an interesting counterpoint to the British

coverage of Bolivia given Brazil’s far more powerful position in the global economy. The current

coverage of Mexico and its difficulties in the War on Drugs offers another opportunity for further

research. Of course, despite the fact that this thesis has revealed an unthinking and enduring

Eurocentrism, to a certain extent it reproduces that very Eurocentrism by focusing on Britain’s

view of Latin America. A reversal of this would offer an interesting avenue of research – that is,

the principles of this research could be used a starting point to examine what Bolivians think of

the British – if, indeed, they think of them at all.

236

Appendix

Chapter Two

TABLE 2.1B: DESCRIPTIONS OF EVO MORALES IN BRITISH PRESS ARTICLES RELATING TO THE 2002

ELECTION BY NEWSPAPER

Financial Times Economist Guardian Independent

The Times


Defined by

Specific phrase

Coca

9

coca growers' leader

2

1 3

leader of the country's coca growers 1 1 2

the leader of the country's powerful coca growers' union

1 1

who supports coca farmers 1 1

charismatic coca growers' leader 1 1

the leader of the campaign to thwart US-led efforts to wipe out coca leaf production 1

1

Leftism 4

Bolivia's leftwing upstart

1

1

socialist 1 1

Bolivia's socialist presidential candidate 1

1

a fierce critic of free markets 1 1

Other

4

controversial and charismatic

1

1

one of two candidates in the run-off for the presidential election 1 1

237


The Times


Defined by

Specific phrase

union leader 1

1

farmers' leader 1 1

Ethnicity 3

a descendant of Aymara and Quechua Indians

1 1

an Aymara Indian activist 1 1

A hawk-nosed Aymara

1

1

Coca & ethnicity 3

the charismatic leader of the indigenous coca growers

1

1

a leader of mainly indigenous coca growers 1

1

the 42-year-old Indian-born leader of the mainly indigenous coca farming union 1 1

Cocaine 3

a presidential candidate who opposes American efforts to eradicate the coca crop from which cocaine is produced

1

1

pro-cocaine presidential candidate 1 1

238


The Times


Defined by

Specific phrase

a fiery, indigenous campaigner against free-market policies and the US-sponsored eradication of coca leaf, the raw material for cocaine 1 1

Leftism & coca

2

hard-left leader of Bolivia's cocaleros 1 1

the socialist leader of the coca workers' union

1

1

Anti-US attitude 1

radical anti-US candidate 1 1

Leftism & ethnicity

1

Indian-born leader of the Socialist Movement 1 1

TABLE 2.2B: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH PRESS ARTICLES RELATING TO THE 2002


Financial Times Total Economist Total DD DD(S) ID UNSIG DD DD(S) ID UNSIG

Evo Morales 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

Manfred Reyes Villa 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 1 0 1

Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada 1 0 3 0 4 0 1 1 0 2

Bolivian public 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0

Bolivian media 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Bolivian other 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0

Manuel Rocha 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 2 0 2

US officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Critics of US officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Organization of American States 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

European/US consultancies 0 0 6 0 6 0 0 0 0 0

Total 1 0 18 0 19 0 1 4 0 5

239

Guardian Total Independent Total

DD DD(S) ID UNSIG DD DD(S) ID UNSIG

Evo Morales 2 1 0 0 3 0 0 1 0 1


Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0


Bolivian media 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

Bolivian other 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

Manuel Rocha 1 0 2 0 3 0 0 1 0 1

US officials 1 0 5 0 6 0 0 0 0 0




Total 5 2 8 0 15 0 0 2 0 2

The Times Total All papers Total DD DD(S) ID UNSIG DD DD(S) ID UNSIG

Evo Morales 0 0 1 0 1 2 1 3 0 6


Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 4 0 6


Bolivian media 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1

Bolivian other 1 0 0 0 1 2 0 2 0 4

Manuel Rocha 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 6 0 7

US officials 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 6 0 7




Total 1 0 4 0 5 7 3 36 0 46

TABLE 2.3B: DESCRIPTIONS OF EVO MORALES IN BOLIVIAN PRESS ARTICLES RELATING TO THE 2002


Correo del Sur

Los Tiempos

El Diario

La Razón El Deber El Mundo



Candidacy

39

el presidenciable por el MAS 1 2

2

5

el candidato del MAS 1 2 1 1 5


1

3

el candidato a la presidencia por el MAS 1 2 3

el candidato presidencial del MAS

3

3

el candidato del Movimiento al Socialismo 1 1 2

240

Correo del Sur

Los Tiempos

El Diario




candidato a la presidencia de la Republica por el Movimiento al Socialismo

2

2

el candidato 1 1 2

el candidato por el Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS)

2

2

candidato a la presidencia de la Republica por MAS 1 1

el presidenciable del MAS 1

1

candidato a la presidencia de la Republica por el Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 1 1

el candidato a la presidencia del MAS 1

1

el candidato presidencial del Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 1 1

el único candidato presidencial con regular crecimiento en la intención de voto

1

1

el candidato que ocupa el cuarto lugar en la intención del voto 1 1

el candidato a Presidente por el Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS)

1 1

el candidato por el MAS 1 1

el personaje central de la elección

1 1

la sorpresa en las encuestas 1 1

241

Correo del Sur

Los Tiempos

El Diario




una de las llaves para abrir y cerrar puertas en el próximo gobierno

1

1

Coca 32

el dirigente cocalero 5 2 3 1 4 1 16

el líder cocalero 2 2 1 2 2 9

el cocalero

1 1

1 3

dirigente de la Federación del Tropico de Cochabamba desde 1988 1 1 2

el ex dirigente cocalero 1

1

el líder cocalero por el Movimiento al Socialismo 1 1

Other

6

hombre de campo 1

1

2

catalizador de la rebeldía 1 1

el sindicalista

1 1

2

un renegado 1 1

Parliamentary career 5

nuevo parlamentario

1 1

2

diputado electo por el MAS 1 1

el entonces legislador

1

1

el diputado expulsado 1 1

Leadership

3

el dirigente campesino 1

1

el dirigente 1 1

el líder orureño

1

1

Coca and candidacy 2

el candidato presidencial y ex dirigente cocalero 1 1

el candidato del MAS y dirigente cocalero 1 1

242

Correo del Sur

Los Tiempos

El Diario




Coca & political leadership

2

el dirigente cocalero y líder del Movimiento al Socialismo

1 1

el líder de los cocaleros y ex parlamentario por el Chapare de Cochambamba 1 1

Leftism 1

el político de izquierda 1 1

TABLE 2.4B: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BOLIVIAN PRESS ARTICLES RELATING TO THE 2002


Correo del Sur Total Los Tiempos Total DD DD(S) ID UNSIG DD DD(S) ID UNSIG

Evo Morales (MAS) 10 7 13 2 32 5 2 6 0 13

Other MAS officials 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 1 0 1

Manfred Reyes Villa (NFR) 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 2

Other NFR officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1

MNR officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 3

Jaime Paz Zamora (MIR) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

MIR officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Jorge Quiroga 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Ronald MacLean (ADN) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

UCS officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

All political parties 0 2 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0

Bolivian political analysts 1 0 3 0 4 2 0 2 0 4

Polls 0 0 3 0 3 0 0 3 0 3

Manuel Rocha 1 0 5 2 8 0 0 0 0 0

US State Department 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Corte Nacional Electoral (CNE) officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

La Tercera (Chilean newspaper) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2

Total 13 9 26 4 52 7 5 16 1 29

El Diario Total La Razón Total


Evo Morales (MAS) 0 2 2 0 4 12 3 10 1 26




Other MNR officials 0 1 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0


MIR officials 0 0 4 0 4 0 0 0 0 0

Jorge Quiroga 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0


UCS officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0



Polls 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1

Manuel Rocha 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1


243





Total 2 15 15 0 32 13 4 24 1 42

El Deber Total El Mundo Total


Evo Morales (MAS) 14 8 20 0 42 1 1 3 0 5




Other MNR officials 0 0 1 0 1 2 0 4 0 6


MIR officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 2

Jorge Quiroga 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1


UCS officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 1 4



Polls 0 0 7 3 10 0 0 1 0 1

Manuel Rocha 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 5 1 7




Total 18 10 45 4 77 5 7 33 3 48

All papers Total

DD DD(S) ID UNSIG

Evo Morales (MAS) 42 23 54 3 122

Other MAS officials 1 2 16 0 19

Manfred Reyes Villa (NFR) 1 2 1 0 4

Other NFR officials 1 2 2 0 5

Other MNR officials 2 2 8 0 12

Jaime Paz Zamora (MIR) 1 0 2 0 3

MIR officials 0 1 5 0 6

Jorge Quiroga 0 1 0 0 1

Ronald MacLean (ADN) 0 0 2 0 2

UCS officials 0 0 3 1 4

All political parties 0 2 4 0 6

Bolivian political analysts 7 10 24 1 42

Polls 0 0 16 3 19


US State Department 2 3 7 1 13

Corte Nacional Electoral (CNE) officials 0 1 3 0 4

La Tercera (Chilean newspaper) 0 0 1 1 2

Total 58 50 159 13 280

TABLE 2.5B: DESCRIPTIONS OF EVO MORALES IN BRITISH PRESS ARTICLES RELATING TO THE 2005



The Times

Daily Telegraph



Presidency/candidacy 36

president 1 5 1 2 9

new president 2 4 6

Bolivian president 2 2 4

Bolivian leader 1 1 2

244


The Times

Daily Telegraph



president of Bolivia 1 1 2

the new president 2 2

the country's new president 1 1

Bolivia's victor 1 1

president-elect of Bolivia 1 1

the presidential candidate of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party 1 1

favourite to win Sunday's election 1 1

leader 1 1

president-elect 1 1

president of Latin America's poorest population and its second-largest reserves of natural gas 1 1

who will become his country's president on January 22nd 1 1

the fourth president of his unstable country in three years 1 1

Bolivia's president 1 1


16

first indigenous president 2 1 3

Bolivia's first indigenous president 2 2

the first Indian to hold the country's highest office 1 1

first indigenous Indian president 1 1

Bolivia's first indigenous Indian president 1 1

first indigenous president of the impoverished country 1 1

first native American president in his country's history 1 1

the first serious indigenous candidate 1 1

245


The Times

Daily Telegraph



Bolivia's first Indian president 1 1

the first full-blooded indigenous president in Latin America 1 1

indigenous candidate 1 1

first wholly indigenous president in Latin America in modern times 1 1

Bolivia's first president to proclaim his indigenous origins 1 1

Coca 16

former coca farmer 1 3 1 5

a union boss for the coca growers 1 1

a passionate campaigner for the legalisation of coca-leaf production 1 1

as eloquent a defender of the rights of the cocaleros as one could expect from a man who came to prominence as their spokesman 1 1

leader of the coca growers union 1 1

a leader of the growers of coca 1 1

former head of a coca growers' union 1 1

leader of coca farmers 1 1

coca grower 1 1

coca growers leader 1 1

the leader of Bolivia's coca farmers 1 1

former coca growers' leader 1 1

Ethnicity

13

an Aymara Indian 2 1 4 7

from the downtrodden Indian majority 1 1

246


The Times

Daily Telegraph



an indigenous Aymara Indian 1 1

a native American 1 1

an Aymara Indian who herded llamas as a boy 1 1

an uneducated Indian 1 1

native Aymara 1 1

Leftism/radicalism/nationalism 8

the socialist candidate 1 1

socialist 1 1

leftist leader 1 1

a socialist 1 1

an ultra-nationalist 1 1

the spokesman for the country's powerful socialist and nationalist current 1 1

radical leader 1 1

a champion of state control of the economy 1 1

Allies

5

Castro ally 1 1

a close friend of both Washington's most outspoken regional critics, Fidel Castro of Cuba and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez 1 1

close to President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Fidel Castro of Cuba 1 1

a close friend of Hugo Chavez 1 1

an admirer of Cuba's Fidel Castro 1 1

Latin American left 5

the latest in a series of left-wing, anti-American elected leaders loosening South America from Washington's grasp 1 1

latest in a string of leftists 1 1

latest left-wing president 1 1

247


The Times

Daily Telegraph



part of a trend across Latin America that has seen left-leaning governments emerge 1 1

more like the Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a moderate in radical clothing [than Chavez] 1 1

Ethnicity & leadership

4

an indigenous Aymara leader 1 1

popular indigenous leader 1 1

46-year-old Aymara leader 1 1

Bolivia's first elected indigenous leader 1 1

Coca & leftism/radicalism 4

radical former coca farmer 1 1

coca farmer turned saviour of the left 1 1

iconoclastic leftwing coca farmer 1 1

radical former coca growers' leader 1 1

Support for/from the poor

4

a man of the people 1 1

[the Bolivian poor's] champion 1 1

Bolivia's candidate of poor 1 1

the peasant's president 1 1

Campaign for indigenous rights 3

a champion of indigenous rights 2 2

Indian's champion 1 1

Coca & ethnicity

3

indigenous coca advocate

1

1

coca workers' leader of Aymara Indian descent

1

1

leader of Quechua coca growers 1

1

Trade unionism 3

a 46-year-old trade unionist 1 1

248


The Times

Daily Telegraph



leading trade unionist 1 1

trade union leader 1 1

Coca & MAS leadership

2

a former coca farmer and union leader turned leader of the Movement to Socialism 1 1

the coca growers leader who heads the radical Movement to Socialism 1 1

Large majority 2

the first president [to obtain over 50% of the vote] since Bolivian returmed to democracy in 1982 1 1

the first [president] since democracy was restored to have won an absolute majority 1 1

Populism

2

a populist, indigenous alternative 1 1

Bolivia's populist president 1 1

Criticism of US 1

an outspoken critic of the US 1 1

Other

18

political street fighter 2 2

a boy from a poor village who spent his adolesence playing the trumpet in bars 1 1

a former llama herder 1 1

hero 1 1

the ultimate anti-politician politician 1 1

a beneficiary of his people's rising assertiveness 1 1

a handsome man with a mop of black hair 1 1

an assured speaker 1 1

249


The Times

Daily Telegraph



[before a crowd] warm and likeable 1 1

charismatic figure 1 1

a bachelor with a taste for the simple life 1 1

most visible leader of the radical social movements that toppled two presidents in two years 1 1

the man in the stripey jumper 1 1

not just a fashion victim 1 1

charismatic 1 1

popular for his sheer ordinariness 1 1

[MAS's] leader 1 1



Guardian Total Independent Total DD DD(S) ID UNSIG DD DD(S) ID UNSIG

Evo Morales 14 4 10 0 28 4 1 3 0 8

MAS officials 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 2

Bolivian consultancies 1 0 0 0 1 3 0 2 0 5


Bolivian other 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0


European/US officials 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1

Officials of other Latin American states 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1

International Energy 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

MAS critics 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

Jorge Tuto Quiroga 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1

Podemos officials 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 4 0 5

Total 24 5 12 0 41 12 1 11 0 24

The Times Total Daily Telegraph Total DD DD(S) ID UNSIG DD DD(S) ID UNSIG

Evo Morales 2 3 1 0 6 5 2 5 0 12

MAS officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0



Bolivian other 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0




International Energy 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 2

MAS critics 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Jorge Tuto Quiroga 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Podemos officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Total 4 3 2 0 9 10 2 8 0 20

250




Bolivian consultancies 7 1 4 0 12



European/US consultancies 2 1 1 0 4



International Energy 1 0 3 0 4


Jorge Tuto Quiroga 2 0 0 0 2

Podemos officials 1 0 4 0 5

Total 61 31 58 0 150



Correo del Sur

Los Tiempos

El Diario

La Razón El Deber




104

el presidente electo 2 6 9 13 3 33

presidente 3 1 7 2 13

el candidato del MAS 1 2 1 1 5

el nuevo presidente 1 1 2 4

el presidente electo de Bolivia 1 1 1

3

el mandatario 1 1 1 3

el candidato

3

3

el líder boliviano 1 1 2

el postulante a la Presidencia del Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 1 1

2

el candidato masista 1 1 2

el virtual presidente de Bolivia 1

1

2

el candidato del Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 1 1 2

el postulante a la Presidencia por el Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 1

1

el nuevo presidente de Bolivia 1 1

el mandatario constitucional 66 de Bolivia 1

1

el candidato a la Presidencia de la República 1 1

candidato por el MAS 1

1

251

Correo del Sur

Los Tiempos

El Diario

La Razón El Deber



virtual Presidente 1 1


1

el virtual presidente electo de Bolivia 1 1

el mandatario electo 1 1

el nuevo Presidente electo de Bolivia 1 1

el presidente de la Republica 1 1

el candidato a la presidencia por el Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 1 1

el candidato presidencial del MAS 1 1

el candidato a la Presidencia de la Republica por el Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 1 1

futuro mandatario 1 1

el próximo Primer Mandatario 1 1

el presidente electo boliviano 1 1

el futuro Primer Mandatario de la Nación 1 1

el nuevo mandatario 1 1

el flamante Jefe de Estado 1 1

el electo presidente 1 1

el virtual presidente boliviano 1 1

el postulante del MAS 1 1

el aspirante que ocupa el primer lugar en las encuestas del percepción del voto 1 1

el postulante masista 1 1

el virtual presidente de la Republica 1 1

el futuro Jefe de Estado 1 1

el Jefe de Estado 1 1

252

Correo del Sur

Los Tiempos

El Diario

La Razón El Deber



el candidato a la presidencia por ese partido 1 1

mandatario constitucional 1 1

Party leadership 22 el líder del MAS 1 1 3 2 7

el líder masista 1 1 1 3

el jefe del MAS 1 1 1 3

el masista 1 2 3

el presidente del MAS 2 2

el líder político 1 1

el líder del Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 1 1

el dirigente del MAS 1 1

jefe nacional de la tienda política 1 1


10

el primer presidente indígena 1 2 1 4

presidente indígena 1 1 2

el que será el primer presidente indio de Bolivia 1 1

el primer indígena en ocupar la primera magistratura del país 1 1

el nuevo líder indígena 1 1

el primer mandatario indígena boliviano 1 1

Coca 7 el líder cocalero 1 1 1 1 4

el cocalero 1 1

el ex líder cocalero 1 1

el entonces dirigente cocalero 1 1


el líder socialista boliviano 1 1

aquel dirigente radical 1 1

dirigente radical 1 1

el dirigente socialista de 46 anos 1 1

el líder socialista 1 1

Ethnicity & leadership 3 el líder indígena 1 2

3

253

Correo del Sur

Los Tiempos

El Diario

La Razón El Deber



Ethnicity 3 un indígena 1 1 2

un aymara de 46 años 1 1

Candidacy & party leadership 1

el candidato a la Presidencia y líder del MAS 1 1

Ethnicity & leftism 1

el dirigente indígena e izquierdista 1 1

Outright majority

1

el primer que gana con mayoría absoluta 1 1

Other 7

el gran ausente en el foro 1 1 2

el ganador de las elecciones 1 1 2

el niño pobre que se hizo líder cocalero 1 1

el político 1 1

el boliviano 1 1




Evo Morales 11 22 6 0 39 17 13 19 0 49

MAS officials 0 3 0 0 3 1 1 3 0 5

Jorge 'Tuto' Quiroga 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 3 0 3

PODEMOS officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Samuel Doria Medina 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 2

UN officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Gildo Angulo 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1

NFR officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Michiaki Nagatani 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

MNR officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Felipe Quispe 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

MIP officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Eliceo Rodríguez 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Néstor García 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1

Polls 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 2 0 2



Bolivian other 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1

CNE officials 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1



European/US Other 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1


MAS critics 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

IMF officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Chinese officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0


Peruvian analyst 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Total 12 29 14 0 55 20 23 35 0 78

254

El Diario Total El Deber Total DD DD(S) ID UNSIG DD DD(S) ID UNSIG

Evo Morales 8 16 34 2 60 12 11 21 0 44

MAS officials 16 10 13 0 39 1 1 2 0 4




UN officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Gildo Angulo 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

NFR officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0


MNR officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Felipe Quispe 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

MIP officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0


Néstor García 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Polls 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 3 0 3



Bolivian other 0 0 0 0 0 3 2 2 0 7

CNE officials 2 1 7 0 10 0 0 0 0 0





MAS critics 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

IMF officials 0 0 3 0 3 0 0 0 0 0




Total 29 28 66 2 125 22 19 41 0 82

La Razón Total All papers Total DD DD(S) ID UNSIG DD DD(S) ID UNSIG

Evo Morales 36 22 31 1 90 84 84 111 3 282

MAS officials 2 2 4 0 8 20 17 22 0 59




UN officials 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1

Gildo Angulo 2 2 2 0 6 2 4 2 0 8

NFR officials 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1


MNR officials 1 0 1 0 2 1 0 1 0 2

Felipe Quispe 2 4 2 0 8 2 4 2 0 8

MIP officials 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1


Néstor García 3 4 3 0 10 3 4 5 0 12

Polls 0 0 5 0 5 0 0 12 0 12



Bolivian other 3 4 12 0 19 6 6 15 0 27

CNE officials 0 0 2 0 2 2 1 11 0 14





MAS critics 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 2 0 2

IMF officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 3




Total 74 69 106 1 250 157 168 262 3 590

255

TABLE 2.9B: DESCRIPTIONS OF EVO MORALES IN BRITISH 2009 ELECTION RELATED ARTICLES BY

NEWSPAPER

Financial Times Economist Guardian

The Times Mirror



Presidency/candidacy 17 president 9 2 2 1 14

Bolivia's president 1 1

president of Bolivia 1 1

Bolivian president

1 1

Coca 5

former coca farmer leader 2 2

the former coca farmer union [sic] 1 1

former coca grower leader 1 1

former coca farmer 1 1

Presidency & ethnicity 4

Bolivia's first indigenous president 2 2

the country's first indigenous president 1 1

Bolivia's first indigenous leader 1 1

Allies 2

a close ally of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela 1 1

a close ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro 1 1


Bolivia's leftist president 1 1

Coca & ethnicity

1

coca workers' leader of Aymara Indian descent

1

1

Other 6

one of Latin America's most popular leaders 1 1

triumphant 2 2

a former llama herder 1 1

a former herder of llamas 1 1

a genuinely progressive president 1 1

256



Financial Times Total Economist Total

DD DD(S) ID UNSIG DD

DD(S) ID UNSIG

Evo Morales 2 2 1 0 5 0 2 0 0 2

MAS officials 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0


Bolivian public 7 1 2 0 10 0 0 0 0 0

Bolivian media 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

Polls 0 0 3 0 3 0 0 1 0 1



MAS critics 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0

Victor Hugo Cardenas 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1


Total 17 3 14 0 34 1 2 1 0 4

Guardian Total The Times Total DD DD(S) ID UNSIG DD DD(S) ID UNSIG

Evo Morales 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

MAS officials 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0



Bolivian media 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Polls 0 0 5 0 5 0 0 0 0 0



MAS critics 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0



Total 1 1 5 0 7 0 0 0 0 0

Mirror Total All papers Total DD DD(S) ID UNSIG DD DD(S) ID UNSIG

Evo Morales 0 0 0 0 0 3 4 1 0 8

MAS officials 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 3


Bolivian public 0 0 0 0 0 7 1 2 0 10

Bolivian media 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1

Polls 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 10 0 10



MAS critics 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2



Total 0 0 1 0 1 19 6 21 0 46

257



Correo del Sur

Los Tiempos

El Diario

La Razón




67

el presidente 15 13 3 5 36

el mandatario 1 4 1 4 10

el jefe de Estado 3 1 4

el presidente del Estado Plurinacional 1 1 2

el presidente de Bolivia 2 2

el candidato del MAS 1 1

el reelecto Primer Mandatario 1 1

el candidato 1 1

el candidato y presidente del país 1 1

el candidato del Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 1 1

el presidente electo 1 1

el virtual reelecto presidente 1 1

el gobernante 1 1

el presidente boliviano 1 1

el actual mandatario 1 1

el reelecto mandatario 1 1

el mandatario y candidato a la reelección presidencial 1 1

el ratificado Primer Mandatario 1 1

258




Evo Morales 6 4 12 0 22 4 4 5 0 13

MAS officials 0 0 2 0 2 0 1 0 0 1


PPB officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1


UN officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1

Ruben Costas 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 4 0 6

Polls 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 5 0 5


Santa Cruz officials 1 0 0 4 5 0 0 0 0 0

Bolivian other 0 1 0 0 1 1 4 6 0 11

CNE officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 4

Santa Cruz civic organizations 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0



MAS critics 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1

CDE officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 5

United Nations officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 3

Total 7 7 20 4 38 10 31 35 1 77

El Diario Total La Razón Total DD DD(S) ID UNSIG DD DD(S) ID UNSIG

Evo Morales 3 0 5 0 8 6 3 4 0 13

MAS officials 0 0 0 0 0 10 5 16 0 31


PPB officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2


UN officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Ruben Costas 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Polls 0 0 4 0 4 0 0 1 0 1


Santa Cruz Other 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Bolivian other 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 3

CNE officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 4

Santa Cruz civic organizations 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0



MAS critics 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

CDE officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

United Nations officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Total 6 5 19 0 30 19 10 28 0 57





PPB officials 0 1 2 0 3



Ruben Costas 1 1 4 0 6

Polls 0 0 12 0 12

Bolivian consultancies 5 8 14 1 28

Santa Cruz Other 1 0 0 4 5



Santa Cruz civic organizations 0 0 1 0 1




CDE officials 0 0 5 0 5

United Nations officials 0 3 0 0 3

Total 42 53 102 5 202

259

Chapter Three:

TABLE 3.3B: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH COCA-COCAINE RELATED ARTICLES 2000-2005

BY NEWSPAPER1

Guardian Total Financial Times Total


DD(S) ID UNSIG

State/government officials 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 3

Cocaleros 2 0 4 0 6 0 1 1 0 2

Evo Morales 2 0 1 0 3 0 1 0 0 1

Anti-coca(lero) third party 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Pro-coca(lero) third party 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

US officials 0 1 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0

European/US analysts 1 0 1 0 2 0 0 2 0 2

Other Latin American state officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0


Other 6 1 0 0 7 1 0 0 0 1

Total 9 2 6 0 17 2 3 3 0 8

Economist Total Independent Total


DD(S) ID UNSIG


Cocaleros 1 0 1 0 2 3 0 2 0 5

Evo Morales 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 2 0 5



US officials 0 3 2 0 5 0 1 4 0 5




Other 0 0 4 0 4 0 0 0 0 0

Total 1 3 14 0 18 4 1 7 0 12

Observer Total The Times Total


DD(S) ID UNSIG


Cocaleros 4 1 3 0 8 1 0 0 0 1

Evo Morales 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1



US officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0



Bolivian public 2 0 0 0 2 10 0 1 0 11

Other 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Total 7 1 4 0 12 16 0 2 0 18

All papers Total

DD DD(S) ID UNSIG










Other 7 1 4 0 12

Total 39 10 36 0 85


260

TABLE 3.4B: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH COCA-COCAINE RELATED ARTICLES 2005-2010

BY NEWSPAPER2

Guardian Total Financial Times Total



Evo Morales 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Cocaleros 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0



US officials 2 0 3 0 5 1 3 4 0 8




Other 11 1 3 0 15 0 0 0 0 0

Total 18 4 9 0 31 3 5 7 0 15

Economist Total Independent Total



Evo Morales 0 0 4 0 4 4 1 1 0 6

Cocaleros 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0



US officials 2 3 3 0 8 0 3 6 0 9




Other 1 2 6 0 9 0 0 3 0 3

Total 4 7 17 0 28 4 5 11 0 20

Observer Total The Times Total



Evo Morales 1 0 1 0 2 0 1 0 0 1

Cocaleros 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0



US officials 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 1




Other 4 4 0 0 8 5 0 4 0 9

Total 21 10 10 0 41 5 6 10 0 21

Independent On Sunday Total Daily Telegraph Total



Evo Morales 2 1 1 0 4 0 0 1 0 1

Cocaleros 0 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 0



US officials 2 1 4 0 7 0 1 1 0 2




Other 1 0 2 0 3 0 0 0 0 0

Total 6 6 12 0 24 1 2 4 0 7

Daily Mail Total Sunday Times Total


State/government officials 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 2 0 5 Evo Morales 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 2 0 5 Cocaleros 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Anti-coca(lero) third party 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Pro-coca(lero) third party 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 US officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1


261

Daily Mail Total Sunday Times Total


European/US analysts 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Other Latin American state officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Bolivian public 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Other 0 2 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0

Total 0 3 0 0 3 1 3 2 0 6

Express Total Sunday Telegraph Total



Evo Morales 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Cocaleros 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0



US officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0




Other 0 0 2 0 2 2 1 2 0 5

Total 5 0 7 0 12 8 2 5 0 14

Express on Sunday Total All papers Total



Evo Morales 0 0 1 0 1 8 5 11 0 24

Cocaleros 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0



US officials 0 0 0 0 0 9 12 22 0 43




Other 0 0 0 0 0 24 10 22 0 56

Total 0 0 1 0 1 76 53 95 0 224

TABLE 3.7B: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BOLIVIAN COCA-COCAINE RELATED ARTICLES 2000-2005 BY NEWSPAPER

3

Correo del Sur Total Los Tiempos Total



Cocaleros 44 50 96 5 195 42 20 46 0 108

Evo Morales 39 41 77 2 159 34 18 31 0 83



US officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Total 77 67 189 10 343 60 35 83 0 178




Cocaleros 52 10 94 0 156 1 7 30 0 38

Evo Morales 45 9 81 0 135 1 7 26 0 34



US officials 0 0 0 0 0 4 2 2 0 8

Total 99 26 186 2 313 15 17 83 0 115


262




Cocaleros 36 24 63 1 124 18 19 69 1 107

Evo Morales 31 20 44 0 95 14 13 50 0 77



US officials 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2

Total 54 38 129 1 222 36 40 142 4 222

All papers Total

DD DD(S) ID UNSIG


Cocaleros 193 130 398 7 728

Evo Morales 164 108 309 2 583




Total 341 223 812 17 1393

TABLE 3.8B: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BOLIVIAN COCA-COCAINE RELATED ARTICLES 2005-2010 BY NEWSPAPER

4




Evo Morales 9 13 17 0 39 14 13 40 0 67

Cocaleros 0 0 1 0 1 2 0 4 0 6



US officials 3 7 5 0 15 0 0 0 0 0

Total 14 21 38 0 73 21 18 53 0 92




Evo Morales 2 3 11 1 17 21 19 48 0 88

Cocaleros 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 9 0 14



US officials 1 0 6 0 7 0 2 4 0 6

Total 3 3 24 1 31 42 37 89 0 168

El Deber Total All papers Total



Evo Morales 3 0 5 0 8 49 48 121 1 219

Cocaleros 2 1 0 0 3 9 1 14 0 24



US officials 1 2 6 0 9 5 11 21 0 37

Total 6 3 11 0 20 86 82 215 1 384


263

Chapter Four:

TABLE 4.4B: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH ENERGY RELATED ARTICLES BY NEWSPAPER

Financial Times Total Economist Total


Bolivian state 37 25 45 0 107 9 3 7 0 19

Bolivian energy sector 6 2 4 0 12 1 1 5 0 7

Bolivian other 9 7 9 0 25 1 6 8 0 15


European/US capital 3 1 3 0 7 0 0 0 0 0

International energy sector 22 17 31 0 70 1 6 4 0 11

European/US state 2 4 1 0 7 0 1 0 0 1

Other Latin American state 9 12 14 0 35 0 1 2 0 3

Other 2 1 2 1 6 0 2 0 0 2

Total 103 70 133 1 307 15 21 29 0 65

Guardian Total The Times Total


Bolivian state 4 14 4 0 22 1 2 3 0 6


Bolivian other 9 0 0 0 9 0 0 2 0 2






Other 0 7 0 0 7 2 1 1 0 4

Total 24 23 12 0 59 13 9 26 0 48

Daily Telegraph Total Independent Total


Bolivian state 3 2 2 0 7 2 3 0 0 5


Bolivian other 1 0 1 0 2 0 1 0 0 1






Other 1 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 2

Total 11 4 6 1 22 14 7 4 0 25

Observer Total Sunday Telegraph Total


Bolivian state 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0


Bolivian other 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0






Other 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

Total 3 6 7 0 16 3 0 3 0 6

264

Daily Mail Total Independent on Sunday Total


Bolivian state 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1


Bolivian other 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0






Other 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Total 5 1 1 0 7 0 0 1 0 1

All papers Total

DD DD(S) ID UNSIG









Other 7 12 3 1 23

Total 191 143 227 4 565

TABLE 4.7B: DISCOURSE REPRESENTATION IN BOLIVIAN ENERGY RELATED ARTICLES BY NEWSPAPER



Bolivian state 31 57 108 1 197 54 115 131 0 300


Bolivian other 12 10 24 0 46 18 17 59 0 94






Total 47 77 140 1 265 102 177 248 0 527



Bolivian state 21 34 73 0 128 31 68 70 0 169


Bolivian other 14 14 19 2 49 12 9 31 0 52






Total 38 56 109 3 206 67 114 163 0 344



Bolivian state 22 24 83 0 129 0 0 0 0 0


Bolivian other 20 10 58 0 88 0 0 0 0 0






Total 50 45 177 0 272 7 3 19 0 29

265

All papers Total

DD DD(S) ID UNSIG









Total 311 472 856 4 1643

266

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